


Seasons of Love

by dancinginthecenteroftheworld



Series: The Nudist Verse [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author regrets nothing, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Jaime Tries to Human, Pick a Ridiculous Premise And Take It As Far As You Can, Porn with Feelings, Smut, not cersei friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 56
Words: 56,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinginthecenteroftheworld/pseuds/dancinginthecenteroftheworld
Summary: It's here! The Jaime POV companion to Measure in Love!Jaime has a new apartment, a new role at his father's company, and a lot of annoyance. But there could be some benefits to this new set-up. Including scandalizing the strangely attractive blonde whose office is across the way.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: The Nudist Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581670
Comments: 1220
Kudos: 642





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> It's here! Massive thanks to my beta, maevewren, who is an astonishing, wonderful, magical human being.
> 
> This takes place alongside Measure In Love. Some of the chapters are concurrent, others take place slightly before or after their companion scene. You don't have to have read that one first, but it wouldn't hurt.

It's eleven in the morning and Jaime Lannister is already 110% over this day. 

It's bad enough that he's having to move into a new apartment, but now he's spilled coffee all over himself because he wasn't paying attention (as usual, he thinks, in a voice that sounds uncomfortably like his father’s) and it was boiling hot so he's stripped out of his clothes. But of course the movers have only got half the boxes in, despite being supposedly full service, and naturally the boxes with his clothes aren't there.

It's the only fucking thing to move that is actually his and they can't even manage.

Jaime hates this apartment already, but it's not like he has a choice. His father has decided that Lannister Corp needs a new image for the younger generation, and so of course he's stuck Jaime with leading the effort. Because Jaime is “young,” although he really isn’t, considering that everyone else involved with the venture seems to be under 35. All of it means not just taking on a new team (100% remote, to appeal to young workers, so now he doesn't even have a fucking office) and moving into a new apartment in the new Lannister building in the trendy, tech-oriented part of town.

Jaime passed seven coffee shops and four vintage stores in his effort to find a coffee that wasn't labeled with some sort of obscure and pretentious bullshit and he'd only gone three blocks.

The apartment is nice enough, as far as it goes, three bedrooms and an office, full dining room and large living area, a big kitchen equipped with all the state-of-the-art equipment Jaime will never touch. The building is marketed as having views of Blackwater Bay, which is quite an exaggeration, but now that Jaime’s here, Tywin can also mention it’s so luxurious, one of the family lives there. 

As if Jaime had made that decision on his own, rather than receiving his marching orders in a meeting.

Tywin has gone the usual red and gold decor route, because Jaime’s father is uncomfortably obsessed with their ancestral heraldry, and Jaime is not at all surprised to see that the new furniture is somehow more ornate than the things his last place had been furnished with.

Jaime doesn’t know what happened to the things from his last apartment, but then it isn’t as if he were attached. 

And there's not even a view in the living room, he’s looking into an office building where some poor drone is stuck behind a computer monitor all day. Jaime can just see a shock of cropped, straw-blond hair peeking out from over the monitor, though that’s about all. Poor sucker, stuck in there with a view of an apartment now. 

Jaime considers the bad luck of other tenants stuck with the false marketing, the real ones. Jaime knows what they charge in this place – not that he's paying – and for what people are forking over they should have something interesting to look at. Office buildings definitely do not qualify.

_Screw it_ , Jaime thinks, flopping down on the sofa. His head hurts, he's exhausted, and now he's naked and sore from being burned by the caffeinated beverage that is supposed to be helping him get through this day.

Coffee isn’t supposed to betray him like this.

When Jaime wakes up, nothing has changed, unfortunately. He's still naked, albeit less damp, and he still has no clothes. A call to his assistant resolves nothing, except to say that they were supposed to have been delivered.

Jaime may be stupid, but even he can figure that much out.

He tries to get some work done, swiping through the documents in his tablet and going through the papers that outline his new responsibilities. The words swim in front of his eyes, making the entire thing make even less sense than it did when it was first explained to him.

Jaime doesn’t know why they bother. He’s not actually going to be making any decisions, no matter what his title is. His job is the same as it always has been – go to meetings and shake hands with higher-ups who want to say they’ve met with a Lannister, do interviews with a charming grin and a meticulously memorized series of talking points. Make everything look young and attractive and golden.

Jaime’s assistant's job is now also remote, so he can't even get Pia to explain things to him, which is possibly part of his father's plan as well.

Twyin has always hated the fact that his older son has dyslexia and it never mattered how many teachers tried to explain to him that Jaime just needed extra help, his father still thought it was a matter of laziness and lack of willpower.

Jaime wonders if the office drone across the street is as bored as he is.

Which – now that Jaime thinks about it, they shouldn't even be there. He's spent far too long trying to make sense of things and it's way past the time any reasonable person should have left work. 

He's wondering what makes someone so dedicated when he sees movement. At first Jaime isn't sure if it's a man or a woman, but she begins stretching and even with the baggiest jeans and tee shirt he's seen in decades, he can tell it's a woman.

She's tall. Tall and strong, he'd guess about his height and with a build that's not too far off, either. He can see the slight curves in her torso as she bends and twists, and before he thinks about it, Jaime is moving closer to the window.

The woman’s not pretty, he can tell even from here, a plain face that doesn't quite fit and straw-like hair. Ugly, even. But Jaime can tell even under her baggy clothes her muscles are flexing and he’s hit by a dizzying feeling it takes a few minutes to identify.

It’s _want_ , he realizes, staring at the woman across the way. 

Jaime’s only ever wanted one woman in his life. But that’s over – and it is over, no matter how much his heart feels shattered into a million pieces – and he’s assumed that was it for him but now he’s staring at this intriguing blond giantess and he _wants_.

His cock twitches against his thigh.

It’s been weeks now since Jaime found his sister, his lover, in bed with one of the Kettleback brothers and his dick has been dormant ever since. He’s more than a little relieved to find everything still works. 

Even if it is in response to a startlingly tall and awkward looking woman who’s utterly unlike Cersei in nearly every way.

He does not want to be thinking about his sister right now.

The blond woman is twisting and turning, long limbs drawing his eye.

When she finally looks up from her stretching, she freezes. 

Gods, the look on her face. She turns redder than anything he’s ever seen, including the walls of his apartment, and she’s looking at him like she’s never seen a naked man before. 

Jaime smiles at her.

The woman practically runs out of her office on her very long legs and Jaime laughs as she disappears from view.

Maybe this new place won’t be so bad after all.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is intrigued by his across the street neighbor, Tyrion is amused.

The movers finally show up with his clothes at the crack of dawn, waking Jaime. But as he stares into his closet, where they’ve swiftly unpacked everything, he decides not to bother. The rows of designer suits and shirts and ties hold little appeal, particularly when he knows that he has no place to go.

Jaime’s not sold on working from home all day because it still sounds extremely dull, but he is on board with not wearing a suit.

Or anything at all, if it will get him another scandalized blush from the intriguing woman across the way.

The look of shock on her face has been playing in his mind all over. Yet she’d also looked like she was enjoying the view. At least, that’s what Jaime thinks – it’s hard to tell at such a distance, but her full lips had parted and it seemed like her eyes had gotten wider. Jaime wonders what she’d look like up close, and what other things might cause her to make such a surprised expression.

He might as well find amusement where he can, if he’s stuck in this place.

Jaime takes extra time with his hair, fluffing it in a way he knows women like, before heading to the kitchen to poke around and see what’s there.

Thankfully one of the gadgets is a fancy coffee machine and the place is stocked with a variety of flavored syrups.

So sue him, he likes flavored coffee.

Jaime has a home office, technically, on the other side of the floor, with a view that looks over the other rooftops in the neighborhood and out onto Blackwater Bay. But he finds the water and boats far less interesting this morning, as he sits in the dining room with his coffee. 

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to disconnect his laptop from all the cords, but he finally frees it so he can return to his sofa. 

Much to Jaime’s disappointment, the first person to walk into the office across the way is not the blond giantess but a round-faced boy who turns a far less interesting shade of red and actually _does_ trip over his own feet as he flees.

The boy is also wearing jeans and a shirt, which makes Jaime wonder exactly what type of company it is, to let employees dress so sloppily.

He’s gratified to see the tall woman return shortly after, though she seems to be doing her best to avoid looking his way.

Which, honestly, is a little bit insulting. Jaime may be over 40 but he keeps in very good shape and he knows his body isn’t bad to look at. He may even have done a quick round of pushups to get his muscles pumped up. 

The man that appears in her office later in the morning must be half Jaime’s age (if that) and has biceps that are frankly unfair. But the woman is looking at the man while they talk, when she has hardly given Jaime a glance all morning.

Jaime’s always liked to add some body weight exercises to his day, to try to break up the mind numbing boredom. Maybe he should do that now. 

Pushups are a good place to start, he decides, even if he has already done some, and hopes the blonde is looking over as he begins.

Jaime’s worked his way through a series of exercises and is doing bodyweight bridges when she finally looks over. Oh, there’s that blush again, as if she’s an innocent maiden. 

Jaime wonders how far down that flush goes, if it extends past her neck to the tip of whatever breasts she is hiding under that shirt. They’d be small, he thinks, high and firm and pale like the rest of her. 

Jaime has to swiftly abandon that train of thought before his exercises become downright obscene.

Nudity is one thing, but Jaime figures thrusting his erection right in her line of view might go too far. Especially considering they haven’t actually met yet.

Not that he cares what some stranger thinks. Hells, she’s not even that attractive, in all honesty, although his cock clearly thinks otherwise. Apparently it likes ugly women now.

She does keep looking, Jaime realizes, as he makes his way through another excruciating list of emails. Shy glances, around the edge of her computer, like she’s embarrassed even though she’s the one fully clothed. 

And he’s practically inviting her to stare.

Jaime considers that maybe this is inappropriate, but he’s sure he’s seen interest in her eyes when she looks over. He may have only been with one woman in his life, but she’s not the only one who’s looked at him. He knows what desire looks like on someone’s face, and it had definitely been on the blonde’s the day before. 

It’s fascinating, really, how shy she’s being. 

At one point, he even catches her licking her lips, a small hint of pink tongue darting out that makes Jaime groan out loud. 

He’s terribly disappointed when he glances up from watching TV in the evening and finds her room dark and empty.

When Jaime tells Tyrion about his day, his brother laughs for a solid five minutes.

“It’s not funny,” he says into the phone, wondering what has possessed him to even have this conversation.

“It’s hilarious,” Tyrion says. “You’re absurd.”

“I am not!”

“I admit,’ Tyrion continues. “I am glad to hear you talking about someone other than Cersei.”

Jaime is surprised Tyrion is addressing the subject so directly. He usually shies away from it. Then again, Jaime supposes he can’t really get annoyed at that. A decades-long love affair between your siblings isn’t exactly an easy topic to discuss.

“She’s nothing like Cersei,” he says.

“Oh?”

Jaime tries to describe the woman but nothing he says sounds right. She’s ugly, but that’s not all. She’s got this air about her that’s almost – innocent. But she’s also tall and strong and he can practically hear Tyrion’s confusion across the line. 

“So you’re really done, then. With our sister,” Tyrion sounds like he’s holding back hope. He’s never approved, which is fair, but it hurts Jaime to have had to keep such a big part of his life from his brother, whom he also considers his closest friend.

“Yes,” Jaime says. He does mean it this time: this is worse than the other fights he’s had with Cersei over the years.

“And you’re interested in a mysterious blond giant who works across the street.” 

“I’m not interested. She’s just entertaining.” Jaime pauses. “Okay, I’m a little interested.”

Tyrion laughs. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know,” Jaime admits.

“So what’s your plan? Stand around naked until she comes over and begs you to fuck her?”

“No,” Jaime says, as if he hasn’t been wondering if that exact idea would actually work. “I don’t have a plan. I’m just … It’s entertaining.”

“I see,” Tyrion says. “Might I suggest trying to actually meet her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am completely blown away by the excitement in response to the first chapter. I only hope I can live up to all your expectations! It's really amazing and humbling to see the responses. I never would have expected this much interest and I'm so very glad you are all here and reading.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime can't get the blonde across the way out of his head.

Jaime slowly settles into his new life. He gets through interminable meetings about this new company that he still really doesn’t understand. Something about robots and food delivery and some weird new money called DragonEggs. He’s pretty sure you can’t just invent money, yet it seems someone has. 

Only it’s not real money, it’s virtual money, and again Jaime’s pretty sure that _shouldn’t even be a thing_ and still it is, according to a series of smug-looking twenty-somethings with black glasses and goatees.

Tech, as it turns out, involves a lot of twenty-something guys with chunky glasses and looks of pity on their faces when Jaime asks questions that are apparently too dumb to even be worth considering.

LIke, say, how this venture is supposed to make any profit. 

The woman across the way remains as mysterious as ever. There are a few days where she makes an utterly adorable attempt to block the window with a series of objects that are carted away by the biceps kid every evening after she leaves.

Jaime briefly considers putting clothes back on after that, but then he sees her one afternoon, looking over with a dazed expression for several moments before she snaps out of it.

She’s enjoying this as much as he is.

Jaime’s favorite is the day she hauls in one of those ubiquitous office trees, the kind that seem to exist in every building despite nobody taking care of them. It’s a truly impressive display of strength and he has to spend a bit of time with a bent leg and strategically placed pillow in his lap after he sees the way her ass flexes even in those baggy jeans.

If Jaime thinks about it too hard, it’s a little disturbing how much he looks forward to these moments in his day.

Jaime begrudgingly puts on a shirt and tie for video conferences, though he’s stubbornly refusing to wear pants. He could, but why risk losing a shot at another covert glance or new shade of red on the blonde’s face?

It feels absolutely ridiculous, sitting there with his crisp white shirt and thousand dragon silk tie and his balls exposed, but he does see the blonde take a longer look while Jaime subtly shifts to spread his legs wider. 

Much to his dismay, the woman hasn’t yet come storming over to yell at him for his nudity. Or shove him up against a wall and fuck him until they both collapse. Whichever works, really. 

Sometimes Jaime catches the woman’s eye when she looks over. She’ll flush even more if he waves or winks at her, and really, he can’t get over how bashful she is. He idly wonders if she’d be like that in person, whether she’d loosen up if he kissed her and peeled one of those terrible tee shirts off to run his hands over her skin. And with how tall she is, that would be a _lot_ of skin. 

A lot of pale, smooth skin to touch and lick and bite until she’s marked with bruises to show his claim.

Cersei was never shy. Not even when they were children. She’d always been the one pushing him, insisting that they were meant to be each other’s everything. 

Of course, Cersei didn’t mean that. She was Jaime’s everything, but he’d been just one of many men to warm her bed. And he’d gone along with it the whole time, blind and stupid with love he couldn’t even show openly.

A love he knows the whole world considers disgusting and sinful. It _was_ disgusting and sinful, and he’d been so weak for it for so long.

The woman across the street acts like an untouched maiden. It’s mystifying how she’s managed to retain that kind of aura at her age, and Jaime wonders what she’d be like in bed, if she’d act the same or if she’s got an assertive side she’s hiding. She’s strong enough to be a match for him, to be someone he doesn’t have to be so careful with, and just thinking about the way her powerful legs would feel wrapped around him is enough to get him half hard. 

Gods, he’s reduced to spinning fantasies about a woman he doesn’t even know and will probably never get to have. Jaime feels pathetic, but maybe this is what it’s like to be single. 

It’s only been a few weeks without Cersei, but it feels far longer.

Tyrion’s probably right – he should try to actually meet the woman. For all his daydreams, she probably won’t come storming over to slam him up against a wall, considering she can’t even look his way without turning red. 

Or she’ll be horribly boring or vapid or even uglier up close and he can get the fuck over whatever is going on in his brain. Or, more accurately, whatever is going on with his cock.

Jaime’s finally starting to think about how to actually accomplish that when he looks up one afternoon and realizes that things might have gotten slightly out of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this my commentary on the San Francisco tech industry? Yes. Yes it is.
> 
> Also, the inside of Jaime's head is a hot mess and I love writing it. We're a lot of introspection now, but things are going to start to pick up.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime adjusts to his new audience and reminds himself that he's free to do what he wants in his own space.

The blonde isn’t alone in her office anymore, Jaime realizes with dismay, and the crowd that’s joined her is staring at him with far too much interest for his comfort.

The two men look annoyingly familiar, though he can’t quite place them. One of the women, a petite brunette, is staring at him with a prurient look in her eyes that makes Jaime want to slink behind the sofa and hide.

The other woman is blushing almost as much as his favorite blonde, although hers is more pink than red, a color which clashes with her long red hair. Come to think of it, they both look familiar, too. 

Objectively, both women are far prettier than the blonde he’s been spying on, but their gazes make Jaime feel like he needs a shower and he can’t summon the slightest bit of interest in either of them. Even though both look like they’d happily take an invitation to come over if offered.

Jaime forces himself not to hide. He’s not ashamed of his body and if he does start getting dressed it’s going to give up the whole game before he’s won. 

Besides, he’s in his own apartment. Jaime has every right to do whatever he wants here. He can be naked if he wants. He could have an orgy with a troupe of acrobats from Dorne if he felt like it and he’d be 100% within his rights.

Not that Jaime’s interested in a Dornish orgy, but it’s the principle of the thing.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but catching his neighbor sneaking a glance at him has become the highlight of his day. Jaime wonders what she’s thinking, if her thoughts are anywhere near as dirty as his.

He wonders what she’d say if she knew what he was thinking when he looks over at her and catches her eyes trailing over his body.

Jaime doesn’t know if it’s the attention of this intriguingly bashful blonde or the absence of Cersei that’s done it, but he’s been taking himself in hand so often that he feels more like a green boy than a grown man.

_Come over_ , he thinks when he sees the blonde woman looking. _You want to._

She doesn’t though, and much to his displeasure her pervy little gang of friends start making it a habit to come by for lunch and gawking. The woman herself doesn’t stay and Jaime considers trying to figure out where she goes, but that feels a bit too much like stalking.

One day he thinks screw it, and does actually get dressed and leave when they arrive, but by the time he makes it to the street, she’s nowhere in sight. 

Of course, Jaime doesn’t even know if she even leaves the building. She could just be hiding out somewhere inside.

Tyrion continues to find the entire thing hilarious. He may be a dwarf, but Jaime’s brother has never had any trouble finding women willing to take him to bed. Most of them are whores or strippers, sure, but quite frankly Jaime feels that Tyrion’s not giving him the sympathy he deserves in his suffering. 

Then Cersei starts calling. 

She must be fighting with Robert again. Cersei’s been giving him the cold shoulder since he got angry about her having affairs with other men, as if _he_ were being the irrational one, and Jaime’s sure she expects him to come running back to her any day.

He would have, too, in the past, begging for forgiveness and a taste of her cunt. 

Part of Jaime still wants to, desperately, when he hears her voice over the line, sultry and promising all the things she’ll let him do. At least until he remembers all the other men she’s been letting do those same things. He wonders if Cersei even lets her sheets get cold between lovers.

Jaime considers if the blonde giantess next door would use someone like that. Probably not, if she is so coy and innocent in her appearance. He can’t imagine she has much experience manipulating men and getting them to do her bidding. 

Not that Jaime can really know anything about this woman, because he hasn’t even met her.

Still, Jaime thinks he’d probably do whatever she asked without much coercion whatsoever. 

He needs to get out of his apartment, because staying there all day is making him a bit stir crazy. He’s obsessing over a woman he hasn’t even spoken to, and yes, she’s probably the most intriguing person Jaime’s ever seen in his life, but she’s still a total stranger.

She could be an ax murderer. Or worse still, boring.

He needs to get a grip.

He needs to punch something. 

When he walks into a gym a few blocks down, in a building that looks like it should have been condemned five years ago, Jaime doesn’t have terribly high hopes.

They’re exceeded beyond expectation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, poor Jaime, he's so bad at this. Next up: the gym!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime doesn't have the highest expectations for the run-down gym he stumbles across. It goes a lot better than he ever would have imagined.

The outside of the gym may be shitty, but the equipment Jaime finds inside is perfectly serviceable and the crowd seems to be made up of people who are serious about their workout. It’s a significant improvement over the gym at Lannister Corp, which seems to be used as a background for selfies of beautiful people clad in skimpy workout gear more than as a place to get in shape.

Jaime hasn’t boxed in years, but it’s always been one of his favorite ways to work out. There’s something primal about it, the experience of facing someone down with punches and strikes instead of words and lawsuits.

There are two fighters going at it in the ring when he walks in and Jaime’s impressed by their skill. They’re holding back enough to keep from injuring each other, but just barely, and he winces when one of the men connects with the other’s jaw in a punch that sends the recipient staggering backwards onto the ropes. 

By the time they’re finished, both fighters are sweating heavily and leaning on the ropes. Jaime’s just finishing up with one of the punching bags when it occurs to him that the fighter peeling their gloves off looks startlingly familiar.

It’s a woman, he realizes, as he walks over, not a man as he’d first thought.

That is definitely interesting.

Jaime’s questioning her about where they may have met when she stands all the way upright and it hits him like a freight train.

“It’s you,” he says dumbly. He feels like he’s been run over by a truck, just looking at her up close. Her face is uglier than he’d realized, but her eyes are a stunning shade of blue. “The office spy.”

She glares at him.

“My god, you really are a woman,” Jaime says, as if he hasn’t been fully aware of that for the past few weeks, because his mouth just keeps going without his brain’s permission. “I wasn’t sure.”

I wasn’t sure _just now_ is what he means to say, but somehow that part doesn’t quite get across.

“I am not spying,” she says, her cheeks turning a familiar shade of red.

Her blush is much blotchier up close, patches of angry red mottling her pale skin instead of a uniform pink color. 

It’s hideous and entirely appealing.

“I didn’t say I minded,” Jaime tells her, winking. 

“I am simply going about my day,” she says, still scowling. “You’re the one who doesn’t seem familiar with the concept of curtains.”

Well now, that’s just rude. 

“Do I need them? You must admit, I do improve the scenery.” He’s giving her every opening here. 

Although. He’s been working on the idea that she likes men and apparently you’re not supposed to do that these days. Not everyone is straight, his assistant is fond of reminding him, usually right before launching into a lecture on why Jaime has said something inappropriate. “Assuming you like men. Do you? Or is it women? Horses, maybe?”

“Yes, because every ugly woman in the world must be a lesbian,” she snaps. “Heaven forbid men might have to lower themselves.”

She may be ugly but her eyes flash like sapphires in the sun when she’s angry. 

“So, you’re not a lesbian, then. You could get curtains too, you know, if I offend you so much,” he teases her. 

She’s still scowling at him, muscles tense, and he’s willing to bet she’s almost as strong as he is. She’s definitely taller, which Jaime minds far less than he might have imagined. 

“My god, you’re strong. You look like one of those old Andal warrior wenches. The kind that served their husbands beer and then followed them onto the battlefield.”

Wench. That’s what he’ll call her. 

“I would love to get curtains, but office buildings have codes, you see, and …” the wench is saying to him now, as if he’s a very small child. “I am behaving in a socially acceptable manner, you are the one who is flaunting manners and strolling around in the nude where half the world can see you.”

“I’m not in the habit of inviting the entire world into my apartment, wench,” he says. 

The wench, on the other hand, is entirely welcome.

“Then once again I suggest drapes,” she says to him, missing the point entirely. “I’m sure you could even find them in that hideous red.”

“Excuse me, Lannister red is a distinguished color!” 

It also looks damn good on him.

She’s heading down the hall towards the changing area when it dawns on him that she’s finally in front of him and he still hasn’t asked her name. Jaime chases after her, catching up before she can duck into the women’s locker room.

“I’m Jaime, by the way. Jaime Lannister.” 

“Brienne Tarth,” she says, taking his extended hand.

Jaime looks at Brienne’s hand, the bruises already forming on her knuckles and brushes a kiss across them before he can think about it. It sounds absolutely absurd, but he swears his skin tingles where they touch. 

She turns an even darker shade of red and scurries into the changing room before he can say anything else. He waits, but after twenty minutes Brienne still hasn’t appeared and one of the other gym goers is starting to give him odd looks. At least he knows where to find her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my name is Jaime and I am a human dumpster fire who can't people.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne Tarth, Jaime discovers, isn't an easy person to find information on.

Brienne Tarth has shockingly little information that’s publicly available, Jaime realizes quickly.

She works for Kingsguard Security as an internet penetration specialist, a job title that immediately sends Jaime into a fantasy involving a blue strap-on that matches her eyes and ends with him jerking off in the shower and coming so hard he actually sees stars.

Kingsguard also rings a bell and Jaime realizes one day that one of the men who looks so familiar is his brother-in-law’s brother. Does that make them brothers-in-law too? Jaime isn’t sure, but he is suddenly grateful that neither of Robert’s siblings show up for any family gatherings.

Renly, the company website says his name is, and the other man must be his partner. Jaime recalls Cersei ranting about the two of them, and how she refuses to let her children near them lest they be corrupted. 

Jaime’s always thought that’s a dumb way to act. He’s pretty sure you can’t turn someone gay and he definitely knows that being gay doesn’t make you a child molester. But it means he’s never properly met his … brother-in-law-in-law? … though he can see the Baratheon family resemblance now that he knows it’s there.

Aside from work, he can dig up very little about Brienne Tarth. Tarth is an island, and he can only assume she’s related to the family that founded it. But there’s nothing about her on any of the island’s websites or Citadelpedia pages. Just a lot of information about their sustainable living initiatives and the restrictions on commercialization designed to keep the tourism industry from damaging the fragile ecosystem. 

There’s a series of newspaper articles on the fact that the Evenstar of Tarth rejected a proposal for a series of Dornish-owned resorts that would have been extremely lucrative because it would have damaged the habitats of several native species.

It’s the sort of thing that would make his father explode with rage, Jaime notes.

But there’s nothing on the Tarth family themselves. 

Jaime asks Pia for information on social media networks, and after a great deal of teasing, she helps him look the wench up there. Brienne Tarth doesn’t have a RavenSpace, a Kaw, a GreenseerGram or a FaceScroll account. 

Jaime doesn’t have those things either, but he hardly needs them when being a Lannister means your name gets splashed across the gossip pages regularly. 

Not that those columns are always flattering. Rumors about him and Cersei keep cropping up despite nobody having a shred of evidence – and they’ve made damn sure there’s no evidence – and Tywin throwing literal mountains of cash at the publishers to hush things up.

Cersei used the gossip columns as a reason she needed to marry Robert, to protect her reputation.

The Kettleback brothers and cousin Lancel were _not_ part of that deal, although she’s surely been fucking all of them behind his back for years. 

And those are just the ones Jaime knows about.

Tyrion drags Jaime out for drinks one night, at some sketchy bar where Tyrion spends half his time making suggestive remarks at the waitress and the other half mocking Jaime’s pain.

“There’s nothing on her,” Jaime says. “It’s ridiculous.” 

“That’s how most people live,” Tyrion’s bodyguard informs him. Bronn has been a constant fixture ever since Tywin realized that as unacceptable as Tyrion’s appearance is, he’s the smartest of the Lannister children and also the most vulnerable. Jaime may be the one who will officially inherit Lannister Corps when Tywin finally kicks the bucket, but everyone knows Tyrion’s the one who will actually be running it.

That plan works far less well if Tyrion is kidnapped or killed, so Bronn has become Tyrion’s shadow. 

He’s a bit of a dick but Tryion actually likes him, so Jaime puts up with it. 

“You saw her at a gym, correct?” Tyrion asks.

“She’s an amazing fighter,” Jaime says, drifting off slightly at the thought of how powerfully she moved in the ring.

“What’s she look like?” Bronn says, interested now.

“Tall. Muscled.” Jaime smiles to himself. “Her face doesn’t match. Her lips are too big and her nose is terrible, but gods her eyes are stunning.”

“Huh,” Bronn says, while Tyrion gives them both a confused look.

“And freckles,” Jaime adds. “She’s got loads of freckles.”

None of that seems to capture Brienne, so he caves and pulls up the Kingsguard website, ignoring the smirk on Tyrion’s face. The headshot of Brienne doesn’t really capture her either, but it’s something. Better than his fumbling words. 

Tyion stares at it for several moments.

“She’s rather … ugly,” Tyrion says, in a tone that Jaime thinks is meant to be diplomatic.

Jaime shrugs. “She is, I suppose. But it’s interesting.”

“I like a strong woman,” Bronn says. “All kinds of things you can do with that.”

“Jaime,” Tyrion says, sounding serious. “This isn’t … you’re not trying to trick her, right?”

“What?” Jaime glares at his younger brother. 

“You actually want her,” Tyrion says. “You’re not just asking her out to make fun of her?” 

“No,” Jaime says, because why even put in the effort for something so stupid? “Why would I do that?”

Tyrion sighs. 

“People do,” he says, his voice heavy. “You’ve never been a joke to people, you can’t understand. But it happens.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jaime says, because it is. “You’re paranoid.”

Not that it’s new. Tyrion’s always been paranoid about things like that, and sure, there are assholes who make fun of him (only once, if Jaime gets wind of it), but Tyrion always seems convinced the women who talk to him have some hidden agenda.

“Just consider trying to be less of an asshole,” Tyrion says. “Just try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion has a much better understanding of where Brienne might be coming from than his brother does. And much like with Brienne, Jaime has a difficult time realizing other people don't see Tyrion how Jaime does.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to approach Brienne.

A few casual inquiries at Selmy’s tells Jaime that the wench works out three evenings a week, usually fairly late. 

“Good fighter,” Thoros Myr says. “Takes it seriously.”

“You gone up against her?” Jaime asks.

“A few times. Lost, too,” Thoros says with a wry grin.

“I could beat her,” Jaime says. 

“You’re not the first to think that,” Thoros says. “Wouldn’t be the first to get the shit knocked out of you either.” 

Brienne is good, Jaime can see that as he watches her wipe the floor with Beric Dondarrion one night. She’s got weak spots, though, that he could use against her. Every fighter does. He’s just better than most at spotting them. 

“You telegraph your moves too much,” he tells her, as she’s leaving the ring while Dondarrion gasps for air on the mats. “Don’t make as much noise.”

“I do not make noise,” Brienne says, sounding offended. “You do,” he says, thinking about the quiet grunts she lets out as she prepares to strike. They make Jaime think of what she might sound like spread out on his sheets. She’s strong enough that he wouldn’t have to hold back, wouldn’t have to worry about hurting her. 

Suddenly his shorts feel entirely too tight and he has to excuse himself to the locker room and a cold shower before he makes a fool of himself.

“Don’t drop your guard,” Jaime suggests another night, leaning against the wall while she beats a heavy bag into submission.

He wishes he could see her muscles working, but she’s wearing absurdly large sweats and a tee shirt, even though it’s hotter than the seventh Hell outside. 

Brienne winces as she’s unwrapping her hands and Jaime strides over to catch her hand in his. 

“You should be careful,” he says, running his thumb over the skin of her wrist. It’s softer than he would have expected, the most feminine thing about her that he’s seen so far. He can’t stop touching it. “You don’t want to get hurt.”

“I won’t,” she says, trying to pull out of his grasp. “I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s obvious,” Jaime says. He can only catch her gaze for a few moments before she looks away. Her eyes really are the most marvelous blue. “But you can still get hurt.” 

“I won’t,” she says, and yanks harder until he lets go of her hand. 

Only she does get hurt, not long after, and he can see the way she’s holding herself too tightly after a match with Clegane but the stubborn wench refuses to let him check her ribs. 

Brienne’s usually the only woman to set foot in the gym, so Jaime doesn’t think twice before he follows her in, shouting that she really does need to let someone check her out.

Except apparently she’s _not_ the only woman to come to Selmy’s and Jaime finds himself backing out of the room while a girl who is hardly older than his niece shouts at him about respect and boundaries and is he some kind of pervert?

“No, I was just worried,” Jaime manages to get out, before backing out onto the street. “I’m sorry, it was a mistake.”

Jaime’s halfway down the block before he realizes that he’s left his key and his gym bag, but you know what, that’s fine. He can get them tomorrow, the last thing he needs is a story in the paper if the child calls the Gold Cloaks on him.

Brienne finally loosens up when he brings up sword fighting. Jaime can just imagine her in a suit of armor, swinging a steel weapon around. It’s astonishing and he’s delighted to find out that she also dreamed of being a knight. 

Jaime also finds out she’s a descendant of the famed lady knight of Westeros, which makes absolute perfect sense. 

He bugs Tyrion for some of his history books, which his brother is all too delighted to give, and forces himself to focus on the words even when the letters jump on the page. Jaime loved the stories of knights and heroes when he was a kid, but that was a long time ago and he’s forgotten most of it. 

It’s more reading than he’s done in years, but it’s worth it when Brienne spends an entire evening arguing with him about the fate of the Lady Ser Brienne’s Valeryian steel sword.

When she’s talking about something she enjoys, her eyes light up and she lets go of her shyness and is absolutely fierce. It’s almost as much fun as fighting, Jaime thinks, although he’d love to do that with her too. 

Jaime proposes they fight, not long after that kneeling on her feet to help her keep them down as she works on her abs. After all, Jaime reminds her, they have seen so much of each other, they shouldn’t mind getting close in the ring.

“I’ve seen so much of you, you mean,” Brienne says. Her face barely betrays any effort as she pulls her body up. 

“Well, you could always even the score,” Jaime responds. 

“I’ll pass.”

“I mean, you don’t even have to strip down, really. Just buy something that fits, I swear I could fit another one of you inside these sweats.” 

The clothes she wears are truly absurd, and he pinches the extra fabric to make a point, doing his best to brush against the muscles in her calf in the process. 

“How about we even the score by having you put some clothes on,” Brienne says, as if he doesn’t catch her looking at him several times a day.

“I will not be constrained in my own apartment.”

“I am not going to fight you. I don’t fight people who don’t respect others,” she says.

Jaime bristles at that, because really he’s been quite respectful and a man is entitled to do what he likes in his own home.

“You’ll change your mind,” he shouts after her. 

He just has to convince her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's trying the best he can, really. In all his horny, unsocialized glory.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has to deal with Cersei and continues to be enamored with Brienne.

Cersei shows up one night after a flurry of texts that Jaime declines to answer. He’s been staring across the way at the dark and empty office and wishing that Brienne were here, arguing with him about swords and knights. Talking to Brienne is like – Jaime hasn’t ever known anyone he enjoys talking to that much. He feels like he could spend hours discussing everything or nothing with her and be blissfully happy.

Jaime knows it’s impossible but he still half-hopes to find Brienne when he opens his door. Instead it’s his sister, blinking up at him, her golden curls cascading down her back. She’s wearing carefully applied make-up that makes her skin almost glow, and a seductively low-cut dress.

“You haven’t answered my texts,” she says, laying a delicate hand on his chest. Her eyes sweep over his body and Jaime belatedly realizes that he’s still naked.

“I don’t want to talk,” he says, pulling her hand off and letting it drop.

Cersei pouts up at him. Jaime wonders how many men she’s done that to, to get exactly what she wants. “You’re not still mad about Osmund, are you?” she asks. Her tongue darts out to lick at her lips. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he tells her.

Cersei steps forward, backing him into his apartment. 

“It’s just sex, Jaime,” she says, as if he’s slow. “You and I are more than that.”

“If we were, then you wouldn’t be having sex with Osmund Kettleback,” he says. “Or his brother. Or cousin Lancel. Should I go on?”

Cersei looks up at him through her golden eyelashes, steps more into his space. She smells like perfume, all musk and floral notes that invade his senses. 

Brienne, when he’s knelt next to her on the mats, smells only of sweat and a distant hint of powder.

“I miss you,” Cersei says, standing up on her toes to capture his lips.

Jaime responds on instinct, opening his lips and feeling his cock stir. She’s familiar, so familiar and soft against him, her lips moving with his effortlessly. For a moment, Jaime finds himself enjoying it, remembering how they used to be, before he pulls himself together and pushes her backwards. 

“No,” he says again.

Cersei’s eyes flash with anger. “You can’t say no to me, brother.” 

“I can and I am,” Jaime says.

“You’ll regret this,” she says. All pretense of seduction is gone as she turns to go, slamming the door behind her.

The smell of her perfume lingers and Jaime can’t take it. He retreats to the back of the apartment and the dining room and stares out at the waters of the bay.

Jaime is well aware that he hardly knows Brienne, and that he’s spinning fantasies in his head, but somehow he _feels_ like he knows her, and he can’t imagine her acting the way Cersei has. 

Brienne blushes in an astonishing variety of shades at the mere sight of him naked, and he’s across the street and far enough away that she’s not even getting the full experience of it. The lingering arousal from Cersei’s kiss flares to life at that thought, imagining how red Brienne’s cheeks would turn if she were here right next to him. He’s seen her blushes up close at the gym, felt the heat radiating off her flesh.

Before he knows it, Jaime’s taking himself in hand at the image, stroking the hardness of his cock. Brienne’s hands are hardly smaller than his and he can imagine it’s hers wrapped around him instead. They’d have the same callouses too, from weights and fighting. Jaime groans, thinking about Breinne’s blue eyes staring at him, imagining the way she moves in the gym, sure of herself and strong. For all her shyness, there’s a passion underneath that he’s seen when she’s fighting or when she’s arguing about Valeryian steel swords. That’s how she’d be, he thinks, sliding his hand up and running his thumb over the head, gripping him and teasing him even as she flushed. Pin him to the bed, maybe, when he’s particularly annoying, hold him down and make him pleasure her until she’s satisfied.

Jaime wonders how far down her blush goes, if it covers the tops of her tiny breasts and reaches to her nipples. He thinks about the shades of pink he’s seen on her, wonders which one is closest to the soft flesh between her legs, the place where even she would be as delicate and feminine as any woman, and that’s the thought that pushes him over the edge. Jaime comes with a low moan, jerking and spilling all over his stomach.

He needs to stop fantasizing about Brienne, Jaime thinks the next day, as he stares through the window instead of concentrating on work. It’s becoming increasingly challenging to stay calm when he looks at her and if she thinks his nudity is rude, he’s pretty sure adding turned on to that wouldn't go over well.

Gods, it’s absurd, he’s a grown man, this shouldn’t be happening. He’s not a teenager.

Then again, when Jaime was a teenager, he was getting laid regularly. He’s never been able to stay away from Cersei for this long, and his body has rarely been without a woman’s touch for weeks at a time.

Over two months, actually, Jaime realizes. It’s the longest they’ve been apart since, well, ever. 

The wench seems to be loosening up, at least. She’s staying for lunch with her pervy gang of friends, and she’s spending less time hiding behind her computer screen as if she’s not enjoying the view.

Today she’s moving through a series of exercises that Jaime himself has done many times. Maybe he’ll join her, he thinks, lining himself up across the way, and of course that gets the wench’s competitive spirit going.

Jaime can see it, as she’s pushing herself to match his pace, which pushes him to go harder. By the time they’re planking, his muscles are already sore and starting to shake from the effort of holding the pose.

Jaime keeps eye contact with her anyway, and her face only grows more challenging though he’s sure he can see the muscles in her arms starting to quiver as well.

The view of her muscles straining unfortunately leads to a very inappropriate line of thinking that has all the blood in his body rushing south. In a panic, Jaime drops to the floor, not even taking the time to brace himself.

That, Jaime decides, as he tries to breathe through the pain in his groin, might have been a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cersei is finally realizing Jaime isn't going to come slinking back and she's not taking it very well.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime spends more time at the gym and tries to get some advice.

When Brienne shows up at Selmy's with the redhead from her office and Jaime gets a closer look at the girl, his stomach plummets.

Now that she's closer, the familiarity is clear. The redhead was one of Joffrey's nannies, the first one that his nephew tried to destroy.

Not the last one, unfortunately. 

Jaime remembers it all too well. Cersei has never let him near her children, never lets anyone in the family near her children, but she'd called in a panic when she'd discovered the bruised and terrified teenager cowering in a back room. 

Jaime has never gotten the full story, but what he does know is that Joffrey had ordered some of the family's security guards to hold and beat the girl while he watched. Joffrey had threatened her with a knife. 

Cersei, of course, had scrambled to defend her son. She said Robert had let the boy watch too many horror films and he was just playing and didn't realize what he was doing.

Jaime knows that's bullshit, and he's once again thankful that Joffrey had still been a child. If he'd been older, it would have been much worse for the woman. Jaime desperately wants to talk to Brienne, because as pathetic as it is, these nights at the gym where he can get close to her and try to get her to talk to him are the bright spots of his lonely week. But he's not willing to go anywhere near them when the redhead is following her around like an inquisitive cat.

Jaime is delighted to see that in addition to trying to learn how to throw a punch -–which she is dreadful at – the redhead decides to teach Brienne yoga. 

Downward dog is a beautiful thing.

"You should get yoga pants," Jaime informs the wench the next time he sees her alone. 

"Excuse me?"

"Yoga pants." Jaime watches her as she bench presses a truly astonishing amount of weight. "You know – for the moves the girl –"

"Sansa," Brienne says. 

"For the moves Sansa was teaching you." Right, that's the girl's name. Some daughter of one of Robert’s friends, he thinks.

Brienne gets up to move on to squats, and Jaime takes a long (and obvious) look at her ass as she goes. He can just imagine how she'd look in a pair of tight pants, and truly it would be a service to humanity. 

"Definitely yoga pants," he says. "The clingy kind."

Really, she doesn't need to glare so hard.

"I don't understand," Jaime says to Tyrion later, as they sit in a booth at an utterly pretentious bar in his neighborhood.

It's supposed to be like an old-fashioned bar, from the second (or is it the third, Jaime forgets) time the High Sparrows gained some power. They had temporarily outlawed alcohol, prompting a back alley trade in spirits. The bar even requires a password to get in, which Jaime finds utterly ridiculous, but it looks like a library and has an absurdly large selection of bourbon, so Tyrion adores it.

"What don't you understand?" Tyrion asks, sipping from a glass of alcohol that's old enough to buy its own drink.

"She's just so difficult! I keep talking to her and she just keeps glaring at me.

"Maybe she doesn't like you," Tyrion suggests.

"But she does talk sometimes," Jaime says. "About some things. She likes knights too. Wanted to be one. She thinks that the Lady Knight's Valeryian steel sword is real, not just a myth."

"Because it is," Tyrion says. 

"They've never found it!" Jaime says. "How do you lose a Valeryian steel sword?"

Bronn snorts.

"Anyway," Tyrion says. "She likes history. Doesn't mean she likes you."

"Maybe she doesn't find you attractive," Bronn suggests.

"Excuse you," Jaime says. "I'm extremely handsome. And she's not a lesbian. I asked."

Tyrion rolls his eyes.

"Some women don't like pretty boys," Bronn says, stretching his arms along the back of the booth. "They like a rugged man. Like me, for instance."

Jaime growls. “You don’t even know her.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Bronn shrugs. “She sounds interesting. And there’s something attractive about any woman, you just have to look for it. Even the ugly ones.”

“She could bench press you,” Jaime says. “And then break you in half.”

Bronn grins. “Well that just opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it?”

“Jaime, have you tried saying any of this to her?” Tyrion asks. “Directly.”

Jaime looks at him. 

“Words, Jaime,” Tyrion says. “Try using your words.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cersei tries to keep Jaime and the rest of the family away from her children — except, of course, when she needs Jaime to do something for her or wants to manipulate him. 
> 
> The bar is based after a real one in San Francisco, Bourbon and Branch, which I some how managed not to visit before I left. Unfortunately. I really should have gone.j
> 
> Bronn is not terribly interested in Brienne but he likes fucking with Jaime. Also, Bronn's philosophy on women is that if they're willing to fuck him, he can find something to like about them. Pretty much any woman. He's certain Brienne is no exception.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime crashes Brienne's party.

The problem with using his words, Jaime discovers, is that Brienne doesn’t seem to take any of them seriously. He tries to drop ideas about seeing each other outside of Selmy’s and she brushes them off with a roll of her eyes. 

But at the same time, she’s not saying anything that would indicate she really wants him to go away. She hasn’t said _no, Jaime, never speak to me again_. Or _no, I find you hideous and disgusting, please leave me alone_. The wench doesn’t _have_ to keep talking to him, either, but she does. Jaime has seen her completely ignore other men at the gym, some of the blockheads that come in and act like women have no business exercising with anything but a treadmill, so he knows she’s capable of it. 

She just doesn’t do it with _him_.

It’s terribly confusing.

Then she’s having some sort of party, he learns from Thoros and Beric, who are putting on some truly alarming Hawaiian shirts in preparation for the event. To celebrate the wench’s new class. Self-defense, apparently, which has Jaime wondering if there’s any chance Cersei would let her daughter sign up.

Probably not.

Jaime decides to follow them to the bar, some trendy place with a Tiki theme. For reasons he can’t quite grasp, the ceiling is covered in dollar bills.

"I heard there was a party and you didn't invite me,” he says, when he locates Brienne as her friend drags her out of a corner. “That hurts, wench, it really does."

"It is not a party, and I didn't invite anyone," she says. She looks more annoyed than anyone should be at their own party.

"Really? It certainly looks like a party. People. Drinks. Food...gods I hope there's food, I'm starving." The bar is stupidly pretentious, like everything in this neighborhood, and he doesn’t have high hopes for food, but gods, he’s hungry. 

Jaime flinches as a knife sails through the air past Brienne's head.

"You know nothing, Jon Snow," shouts a redhead, who is clutching several more blades in one fist.

"A potentially deadly party," Jaime says. "That seems rather fitting for you, though."

"Why are you even here?" Brienne asks.

Gods, sometimes this woman is dense. Why is he here? Why does he talk to her? Jaime’s done all but wave a sign declaring his interest in her.

"Well, I heard we're celebrating. You're going to turn the women of Kings Landing into mighty warriors, isn't that right?" Speaking of women, there's a decidedly determined brunette doing her best to seduce a young man who is clearly petrified. Jaime thinks he’s one of the ones he’s seen in Brienne’s office during meetings.

Jaime doesn't know why the man looks so terrified. Slinky brunettes have never been his thing, but the girl's pretty enough and clearly interested.

Brienne's eyebrow arches.

"Though I think you're going to have your work cut out for you."

"Until men learn to behave, every woman should learn how to defend herself," Brienne says, full of righteousness.

"You're not wrong," Jaime admits. He's heard far too many men admit to heinous acts when they think there's nobody around to care. Thinking about it makes his blood boil.

"OH MY GOD." It's the knife-throwing redhead, who flops down on the bench and blinks up at him. She's wasted already, in a way that's actually kind of impressive. "You're Naked Guy." 

Thankfully, Brienne is already gathering up the knives before the girl can start throwing them again.

"Well, mostly I go by Jaime," he tells the drunk girl.

"Your abs are very impressive," she informs him. “I want to lick them.”

The brooding guy behind her looks devastated.

"Naked Guy?" Thoros asks, and maybe Jaime should have thought this idea through better.

"Jaime’s apartment is across from Brienne's office," It's another brunette. This one part of the core group of pervs. Less slinky than the first, though not by much. "Mr. Lannister is not fond of clothing." 

Well, shit. Jaime tries to tamp down on a blush, wishing he'd thought a little bit ahead before embarking on this plan.

He could stop.

But seeing Brienne turn red in between heated glances is just too much fun.

“You’re a secret nudist?” Beric considers this. “I can respect that.”

Beric probably has a giant bag of weed and set of bongo drums that he plays in the nude.

"It's not right, man. Nobody can have a meeting in there anymore without seeing ..." The brooding young man seems truly distressed.

"Shut your mouth! That's the best lunchtime entertainment I've had in years." It's the slinky brunette, dragging two young men with her. One of them looks like everyone he loves has just died.

But Slinky has given him a great opportunity.

"Oh, so you do watch me!" He grins at Brienne. "I knew you weren't as offended as you like to pretend." 

She's hitting a new shade of red tonight. It's glorious.

"I don't watch you. _They_ watch you." Brienne says, as if he doesn't see her sneaking glances his way every few hours.

To be fair, it's not like he isn't staring at her as well.

"I mean, we don't _watch_ watch," Renly says, blushing slightly. Jaime wonders if he knows they're related by law. "Just have lunch."

“While watching,” the redhead adds cheerfully. “Wait, how old are you?”

Shit. Now that he's looking around, they do look awfully young. Even Brienne.

“Forty-two," he answers, holding his breath.

She pouts. “I think that’s over my ab-licking age limit.”

The broody kid looks relieved.

"We don't watch," says the dour one. "We avoid." 

This is not helping Jaime right now.

“How old are _you_?” he asks the redhead.

She says twenty-four, as if that's not practically still a child and oh gods, he hopes Brienne isn't the same age. He takes a long drink of beer. Jaime’s not a dirty old man most of the time, or at least he'd like to think so.

Unless he’s been ogling someone who’s hardly legal.

“Are _you_ twenty-four?” he finally asks Brienne, since she's not volunteering.

Please don't let her be twenty-four.

“No,” Brienne says, adding nothing.

“She’s thirty-two," says the less-slinky brunette.

Jaime decides he likes her.

“Oh good,” he says, before he can stop himself.

“Definitely in your ab-licking age range,” the redhead informs Brienne.

Okay, deadly weapons aside, maybe she's not so bad either.

Brienne has her head in her arms now, which is depriving him of her lovely blushes and startlingly blue eyes.

Oh gods, maybe she thinks _he's_ too old for _her_.

"So I didn't realize you two knew each other," less-slinky brunette coos.

“You’re not telling your other friends about me? That hurts, it really does,” Jaime says. He's certainly been telling his about her.

Well, his brother. And Bronn.

Who make up the entirety of his social circle, it seems.

Surrounded by Brienne’s crowd of pervy and non-pervy friends, that suddenly seems rather pathetic.

“We’re not friends,” Brienne says.

“Well, you’ve seen me naked, we’re certainly not strangers,” Jaime reminds her.

“I didn’t ask to see you naked,” Brienne says.

“I modeled for an art class in college.” It's the broody kid. “Lots of people have seen me naked. But I don’t think they’re all my friends.”

The redhead is licking her lips and looking at the kid like he's a steak dinner. Get it, deadly, too-young gutterpunk.

"We both train at Selmy's,” Jaime tells less-slinky brunette, since she seems to be a potential ally. “We're going to fight someday."

"No we're not," Brienne mutters from behind her hands.

"And I'm going to win. It's going to be epic." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, Jaime has a lack of planning come back to embarrass him. 
> 
> Let's be real: If Ygritte wanted Jaime for real, she wouldn't care about ages, but she thinks he's too pretty for her. Plus, she thinks getting laid would loosen Brienne up so she's all for it.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime sticks around after Brienne leaves the party, trying to get info from her friends.

Jaime sticks around after Brienne manages to extricate herself from not-slinky's grasp. Not-slinky, he learns, is Margaery Tyrell, whose name sounds terribly familiar but he can't place.

The Tyrells are as old a family as the Lannisters, though, so he’s probably acquainted with some of her relatives.

"So you know Brienne," Margaery says, eyes gleaming as he finally gets his hands on some food. 

"He follows her around like a puppy," Thoros says, and Jaime glares at him.

"She hasn't mentioned me?" he asks, hoping he doesn't sound too pathetic.

"Not really," says Broody Boy.

"Isn't she amazing?" Margaery says. 

Jaime's mouth is too full of poke to answer, but he nods fervently. 

The knife-wielding redhead is Ygritte, he learns, and she's got a predatory look in her eyes. Jaime isn't quite sure if it's directed at him or the brooding boy – Jon – upon whose lap she is now perched. 

"You totally want her to lick your abs," Ygritte says gleefully. 

Or lick hers. He's not picky that way.

Renly, who has been quietly observing, stares at Jaime with a startlingly intensity.

"You're not just fucking with her?"

He'd like to _be_ fucking her, but that's clearly not what Renly means.

"No!" Jaime says. 

"Because she's great," Sansa says.

Jaime hasn't actually spoken to the woman yet, but she's giving him a stern look from where she's hovering by Clegane. And seven hells if that isn't the strangest pair he's ever seen, with Clegane glaring from behind Sansa like a loyal dog.

"She is," Jaime agrees. "She's fascinating."

"Really," Margaery purrs. She's leaning over the table, a substantial cascade of cleavage spilling over. Jaime avoids looking at it.

"You've met her."

"I have," Margaery agrees.

"She's so strong," Jaime says, doing his best not to sound like a love-struck schoolboy. "Have you seen her fight? She wipes the floor with that bastard all the time." He gestures at Clegane.

"Not all the time," Clegane grunts.

"Most of the time," Beric says, smirking.

"She benches more than 200 pounds for her workout," Jaime says, still a bit dazed by that bit of information.

"Brienne is sensitive," Sansa says, from where she's sipping a glass of dark booze and grimacing. “You have to be careful with her.” 

Jon, who has been staring at Ygritte's back with his hands hovering in the air, like he wants to touch her but isn't sure if he's allowed, stops brooding long enough to glare in Jaime's direction. 

"She's a great person," Jon says. Jaime thinks he's trying to be menacing. "You better not hurt her."

"Why does everyone think I'm trying to hurt her?!" 

Renly looks like he's about to say something, but Margaery elbows him hard. 

"She's a bit shy, our Brienne." Margaery says, all sugary sweetness. 

"That explains the blushing," Jaime says. He drifts for a minute, mentally reviewing all the shades of pink and red he's seen on the wench's face. Gods, she looks so good like that, all flushed. "It makes her eyes even bluer."

He realizes belatedly that he's grinning at nothing, like an idiot, and shoves more tuna in his mouth before he can embarrass himself further.

Margaery is smiling at him like he's done something very correct, while Renly looks like he's trying to stifle a laugh. 

Ygritte finally gives up on Jon and grabs his hands, planting one on her hip and shoving the other under her shirt. 

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you," she tells Jaime. 

Coming from her, it almost sounds like approval.

The happy warmth he feels from getting a chance to get more insight into the mystery that is the wench dissipates when he comes home and finds Cersei lingering by his door. 

"You weren't here," she says, narrowing her eyes. "Where were you?"

"Out," he says.

"But I need you," she says, pouting up at him. 

Jaime sighs. 

"I miss you, brother," Cersei says, draping herself over him. "The kids are staying with friends tonight and Robert is on a trip. Why don't you come over?"

"No.”

"But I'm lonely."

"Then why don't you call Kettleback?" Jaime suggests, firmly escorting her to the elevator and pressing the buttons before she can object. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly, Jaime's heart eyes are obvious to pretty much everyone who isn't Brienne. 
> 
> Also, Cersei, as we can see, isn't letting go of Jaime so easily. Which is definitely something Brienne had no idea was going on behind the scenes, so to speak.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to get closer to Brienne, Cersei refuses to let go.

Cersei isn't letting go, Jaime realizes. When they're summoned to the monthly family dinner of obligation, she tries to drag him into their father's study when he arrives, and corners him again when he's trying to leave, gripping his crotch in an uncomfortably tight hold meant to hurt as much as arouse.

The actual dinner isn't much better, with Tywin firing off questions about the new business venture and haranguing Jaime about his lack of suitable marriage prospects.

Jaime nearly suggests that he has met someone he's very much interested in, actually, but he knows better. Not only would it set Cersei off, there's absolutely no way Tywin would look at Brienne and consider her suitable.

Not that Jaime is thinking about marrying the woman.

He has to get a date first, after all.

Jaime leaves feeling like a wrung-out sponge. Cersei has never shown this much aggression – he's always been the one to go to her, and while he would have once been overjoyed, Jaime is now realizing that the only reason it's happening is because she can't stand being told no. She’s so used to him catering to her every whim, coming to her desperate for affection in the hopes that she’ll be in a good enough mood to give it to him.

Gods, he's been so stupid not to have seen it all these years.

Begging at her feet like a fool, offering her everything he has, never even considering another woman. 

He'd even suggested they run away once, right after they'd come into the trusts from their mother, suggested they go to Essos or Bravos or Mereen or anywhere that they could be just a man and a woman instead of a brother and sister sinning in the worst possible ways.

Cersei had refused, and Jaime sees now that she would never give up the standing and wealth that comes with the Lannister and Baratheon names. 

Jaime would have cast it all aside in a heartbeat.

He worries about her children, too. Robert is off gods-knows-where, as usual, but the children are at dinner, stiff in formal wear. Joffrey’s eyes look emptier and colder every time Jaime sees him and the younger kids look terrified. 

The way Tommen had cowered every time his older brother came near him reminds Jaime of the way Tyrion had been as a child, anytime Cersei got close to him. 

He’s sickened when he thinks about how little he’d done to stop it. Jaime would distract Cersei as best he could, divert her attention to something other than tormenting their little brother, but he rarely stood up for Tyrion directly. Not until they were nearly adults.

On the brighter side of things, someone appears to have taken the wench for a shopping spree. He suspects the Tyrell girl, and Jaime briefly wonders if sending her a thank you card would be too much.

Brienne’s legs have awed him since he first laid eyes on her, but in pants that actually fit they’re even better. Even if the pants aren’t tight enough for Jaime’s taste. 

The wench has got her little class now too, which from what he can see is full of women who look as improbably delicate as Sansa. Brienne is certainly going to have her work cut out for her. 

Jaime considers offering help, but the wench slams the door in his face before he can even get the words out. 

Jaime can tell when he’s clearly not welcome. The group of students give him dirty looks if he just so happens to be in the hallway as class is letting out. They won’t even share the cookies one woman brings, even though he’s certain he’s seen Sansa slipping Clegane a bag full of them. 

Still, it’s another night he gets to speak with Brienne, however briefly, so he’ll take it.

Tyrion almost drops his glass when Jaime gives him an update on what his little brother has dubbed Operation Giantess.

“You like her,” Tyrion says. 

“Yes.” 

“No, I mean, you really like her.” Tyrion sips his drink. “I thought you just wanted to get her into bed.”

That was his original intent, but it turns out that Brienne is fascinating and kind and even more fun to tease up close. “So what if I do?”

“Nothing.” Tyrion shrugs. “I’m just surprised.”

“Me too,” Jaime says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is absolutely already thinking about marrying Brienne, let's be real.
> 
> Tryion, having resigned himself to Jaime being in Cersei's clutches forever, is over the moon at this development in Jaime's life and also terrified it isn't real, because he knows who Jaime is with Cersei.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime finally gets some time with Brienne outside of the gym. It does not go as planned.

Jaime thought he and Brienne had established a connection at her party – certainly her friends seem to be less bristly, cookie-denial aside – but she's been even more focused on her workouts than usual. 

Maybe getting her away from the gym is the ticket. She had been more relaxed at the party. Sort of.

Jaime finally manages to catch Brienne after a workout one day and coax her into getting some food. He never did get to buy her a congratulatory drink at her party, and he's been meaning to try the one restaurant in the area that looks like it's a relic from before tech gentrification. 

Jaime almost laughs out loud when Brienne's stomach lets out a mighty roar that would put a lion to shame, but bites it back as he remembers Sansa's caution that Brienne is sensitive.

Such an odd thing for such an incredibly powerful woman.

Slinging an arm around the shoulder of a woman taller than himself is an unusual experience, and Jaime rather regrets not slipping it around her waist instead, but as tense as she is, the wench hasn't punched him yet so he's not going to risk letting go.

She smells like lime and coconuts. 

The diner is everything he hopes, full of grease and carbs and all the things he was never allowed to eat as a child.

"Oh, don't tell me you're on a diet," he groans when Brienne waffles about adding fries.

"If by diet you mean trying not to die of a heart attack when I'm 40, then yes," she says, giving him a tart look. 

"One meal is not going to give you a heart attack," Jaime argues. He lets his eyes sweep over her conspicuously, but she's too engrossed in the menu to notice.

If the woman has more than 20% body fat, he'll eat his boxing gloves.

Brienne bites her lip, teeth sinking into the plump curve and Jaime desperately wants to haul her across the table and replace them with his mouth. 

“Go for it,” he urges. “You’re at the gym several nights a week, I’m sure your heart can take it.”

"Fine," she finally mutters, and when the incredibly bored waitress takes their orders, Jaime insists on adding a couple of Valyrian ales.

"Live a little," he tells Brienne, who is frowning slightly. "It's one beer, you can still get home and go to bed at a reasonable hour like the responsible wench you are."

If it were his bed, she'd be in it by a reasonable hour but she certainly wouldn't be getting any sleep.

Jaime deflects the wench's questions about his job rather than admit he really doesn't understand what he does. She works with computers, she'd probably understand perfectly what a "food delivery using algorithmic prediction with frictionless delivery using cryptocurrency and drone service" actually means.

Jaime definitely does not.

They're digging into their burgers, which are fantastically greasy and so flavorful Jaime almost moans when he takes the first bite, when he finally manages to turn the conversation back towards her. 

"I work in internet security," she says, starting to turn pink when he shifts the focus to her. 

"Oh, doing what?" Jaime asks innocently.

The wench launches into a description of her job, which sounds far more useful than his, to be perfectly honest, but he's not letting her off the hook. There's no way she's unaware of all the double entendres that can be made from her job title. 

Jaime wonders which shade of red she'll turn just uttering the word “penetration.” 

He can’t wait to find out.

"Hmm, what's that called?" he asks, when she finishes. 

The line he tosses out about her being able to penetrate him is only meant to increase her blushing, but Jaime can't stop the image that enters his mind and has to take several deep and deliberate breaths before he can really focus again.

She blushes even more furiously when he talks about reversing the scenario and the look that crosses her face hits him like a punch in the gut. 

"A blushing maiden still," he says, almost disbelieving. She's young, but she's not that young, how is that even possible? He didn’t think virgins existed past the age of 20. How has nobody tried?

"They tried," she says in response, voice curiously flat.

Jaime can't imagine the woman in front of him having any patience with men who can't stand up to her, best her in a fight, match her as her equal. What use would Brienne have for weak men? Yet there are probably few who could best her.

"Maybe you need someone to pin you down," he says, pitching his voice low. "Make you feel like a woman."

Jaime can imagine that all too clearly, what it would like to feel Brienne underneath him, all that strength and muscle. Being the one to show her how good it can be, how good he can make her feel. Fuck, Jaime's never had a virginity kink before but he thinks he might have just developed one on the spot. 

Brienne may be hiding her body under baggy clothes but Jaime’s seen enough to know it would be incredible. The idea of being the first to see it, to peel back the layers she’s swathed in and touch her and taste her when nobody else has the privilege sends a shiver down his spine.

"I could, you know," he says, watching her face carefully. "I'm strong enough."

_Let me,_ he wants to say. _Let me show you._

But instead of interest flaring in her eyes, it's anger, and before Jaime can process where this conversation took a wrong turn, she's shoving away from the table and running outside. 

Jaime barely remembers to throw a wad of cash on the table, probably enough to pay for their meal and every other table in the place, before chasing after her.

"Brienne," he shouts, but she's already halfway down the block, long legs eating up the pavement. 

She's not far enough away to miss hearing him but she doesn't turn back.

Well, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's startup business does not actually exist, but the idea is courtesy of a product manager friend of mine, and we both agree it sounds like something somebody would try. I'm imagining Lannister Corps acting as kind of the venture capital and corporate advisers to a bunch of dudes convinced this is going to be the next big thing to "disrupt" the industry. 
> 
> Jaime's ideas of sex and relationships come almost exclusively from Cersei so as you might imagine they're a bit ... warped.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime realizes he screwed up.

After a few days of not seeing Brienne at Selmy's, Jaime realizes she’s far more upset than he initially thought. 

"What the fuck did you do to her?" Clegane asks, cornering him one day. 

The man is massive and it's even more terrifying up close. 

"I don't know," Jaime says. 

Cleglane looks unimpressed. 

"I might have been teasing her about her job."

Clegane grunts at him. "For fuck's sake, you're an idiot, you know that?"

"Yes," Jaime says, because clearly he is. He sighs. “I was just joking around.”

"Fucking moron," Clegane says, but he lets Jaime go.

"I've really fucked up," Jaime tells Tyrion. They're at the diner of shame, because the burgers really are fabulous. The service is markedly better too, enough that Jaime wonders exactly how much cash he left that night. 

"Please tell me you didn't actually say that," Tyrion says, disbelieving, after Jaime relates the incident.

"That's your idea of flirting?" Bronn adds. "No wonder you don't get laid."

How much has Tyrion told Bronn about his romantic history?

"What? I am strong enough," Jaime says. "She'd never waste time with a man who was beneath her."

Tyrion and Bronn exchange a look.

"Jaime," Tyrion says. "I realize that your romantic history is ..."

"A fucking nightmare," Bronn supplies, and clearly Tyrion's told him something.

"Unusual," Tyrion finishes. "But you have to realize how that could sound."

“It’s pretty rapey,” Bronn agrees.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Jaime says, appalled. "I just meant, you know..."

He thinks of Cersei, of the way they’d come at each other, trying their best to get the other to break first. Cersei had always been angry if he’d failed to please her, if he’d not been strong enough to withstand whatever she did.

"How is she supposed to know that?" Bronn asks. 

"I really didn't mean it in a bad way," Jaime says again.

"You also need to understand that your past relationship isn't exactly normal," Tyrion says.

"I know that," Jaime says. 

"I don't mean – I mean," Tyrion says, looking around and lowering his voice. "Cersei manipulated you. She used you. And she made you use her – or made you think so, anyway. Most people don't use sex as a power game."

"Unless they're into that," Bronn offers. “I know a club, if that’s your thing.”

“It’s not my thing,” Jaime says. “It’s just ...I mean, sex.”

Tyrion pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s not how normal people have sex.”

“Hey,” Bronn objects, though he doesn’t sound terribly put out.

“Especially women who have been treated the way you say,” Tyrion adds.

“Her friends said she’s sensitive,” Jaime says. 

"This is her, right?" Tyrion fishes out his phone and pulls up the photo of Brienne from the Kingsguard website, the one Jaime showed him before.

Jaime nods.

"You can't possibly understand what it's like for her," Tyrion tells him.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

"She's an ugly girl. Ugly men are told to be lucky for any scraps they get thrown and I can only imagine it's worse for women."

"She's not ugly," Jaime says.

"She is. So am I." Tyrion sighs. "It's not an insult, it's just a fact. And the world treats people like us far differently than it treats people like you."

"You're still plenty able to understand women flirting with you," Jaime points out.

"I'm rich and I'm a man," Tyrion says. “Plenty of people will overlook a lot if there’s a chance of getting paid. Women aren’t as lucky.”

“But what do I do?”

"I don't know if this is one you can fix," Tyrion says grimly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Tyrion and Bronn are your voices of reason, it's perhaps time to reflect on your life.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime gets a dose of reality.

Jaime needs to apologize. That much is clear. But he can't apologize to Brienne if he doesn't see her, and that's a problem.

He’s pretty sure he’s destroyed any chance of dating Brienne, or fucking her, but Jaime will take friendship if that’s all he can get. 

He tries waiting outside her class, but she manages to slip out.

Jaime isn't so lucky, and he's surrounded by her students. 

"You," Margaery growls, poking him in the chest. 

"You're despicable," the cookie-baker spits out, clutching her tupperware and glaring at him. 

"I thought you liked Brienne," Sansa says, looking hurt. 

"I do like her!"

"Then why are you mocking her?" The black woman with curly hair scowls at him. 

"I'm not!"

"You made fun of her," the redheaded not-Sansa woman says. "You hurt her."

"I wasn't making fun!"

"Do you know what men have done to her? How they've treated her like a joke?" Margaery asks, backing him towards a wall. 

“Do you know what it feels like to be used?” Not-Sansa says.

"Brienne is the sweetest, most amazing person," Cookie Girl says. "Why would you attack her like that?"

"I didn't mean to!" 

"Do you know what it feels like when men hurt you?" Sansa's eyes are dangerous. "When they want nothing more than to see you suffer? When they look at you and just see trash to be used and thrown away?"

Her voice hitches, but she's clenching her fists and Jaime is fairly certain she's about to come after him and beat him with her tiny, ineffectual fists until Margaery gently gasps her arms and pulls her back.

"I don't want to hurt her," Jaime says, wishing he could go back in time. "I don't want her to suffer. I want ..."

What does he want? He wants Brienne, certainly, has started this flirtation with the idea of getting her into his bed, but hearing Sansa's words also makes him want to grab Brienne in his arms and hold her and keep her far away from any man who would dare do such a thing. 

Not that Brienne needs his protection. Jaime is certain she would be the first to tell him so.

Margaery's face softens. "If that's true, you need to fix this. Fast. Because you're not going to get another chance." 

Jaime doesn't know what he's done to get Margaery Tyrell on his side, but he'll take it. She gives him a heads up one day when she knows Brienne will be leaving the building and Jaime waits outside in hopes of catching her.

He even puts on a suit, trying to show how seriously he's taking the fact that he very clearly and obviously fucked up. 

Thank all the gods that Brienne agrees to at least hear him out, and they wind up in one of the many pretentious coffee shops while Jaime tries to figure out how to explain that he really didn't mean what she thinks he meant.

Then two absolute assholes show up – he thinks they must be from her office, because she knows them but he's never seen them before – and start flinging insults her way in a biting tone.

Jaime realizes with growing horror that the things they are saying sound uncomfortably close to the things he's said to her, even though he obviously never meant them seriously and these dickheads clearly do. 

And Brienne, strong and fearless Brienne, is sinking into her chair like she's trying to make herself so small, much smaller than she ever should be.

The rage starts building when one of the douche-canoes suggests that she's been touching herself while enjoying the view, and sure, Jaime may have imagined that exact scenario in his head many times, but not like that, not cruel and mocking.

They talk about Brienne like she’s a thing, a freak, something to be hated instead of the most incredible person he’s ever met in his entire life.

It's about the time that one of the jackasses suggests that fucking her would be something to do out of desperation, and that Brienne should be easy and fuck any man who would do so (while pretending she’s someone else) out of _gratitude,_ that Jaime snaps and slams his fist into the man's nose.

It's been a long time since he's punched someone without gloves on and he's forgotten how much it hurts, but it's worth every ounce of pain. So is the second punch, when the asshole’s buddy won't take a fucking hint. Jaime's dimly aware of cell phones being pulled out around them, which is probably a bad thing but he doesn't care. Not when rage is coursing through him.

There’s no way that someone with a phone out isn’t going to recognize him, and if they don’t, someone seeing the footage certainly will. Jaime should be going out and grabbing phones, telling people exactly what kind of legal trouble will come their way if they dare release a second of footage, but he doesn’t. 

Jaime stays at the table, trying to tell Brienne that he hasn’t meant to be like those men, that he hasn’t realized, that he won’t do it again. 

Brienne has every reason to tell him to go to every one of the seven hells and never speak to him again, but somehow she doesn't. She forgives him, or at least enough to give him a chance not to be the utter asshole he is.

Jaime doesn't know if he should pray to the warrior or the maiden in thanks, but he'll take it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Jaime is trying to reconcile the fact that his awed, enraptured, hopelessly horny for her image of Brienne is not how other people see her. It's going to take some thinking on his part.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to work towards friendship with Brienne, post-apology.

Tyrion, may the Seven bless him, manages to get his hands on any cell phone footage of Jaime Lannister punching two unnamed men and keep it from hitting the news.

Only one photo slips out, showing Jaime looming over the collapsed form of one of the men while Brienne hunches over in her chair. Thankfully it only appears in one small gossip magazine, the kind he thinks Brienne would never look at. 

Jaime considers changing his habits, putting clothes back on — like a normal person, Tyrion says — but while he's clearly misjudged Brienne in many ways, he is still fairly certain she'd either think he was pitying her and her embarrassment or that he took the two dirtbags seriously and is horrified that Brienne might look at him.

Jaime doesn't want Brienne to think either of those things.

Jaime is alarmed by how vulnerable she'd looked, and he loathes himself for anything he's said that made her feel the same. 

It doesn’t help that the comments the two fuckheads made about her keep coming back to his mind — about her touching herself to the view, about what she’d look like when she comes. It makes him feel like scum, dwelling on it, but the image they invoked won’t leave his brain. 

Jaime knows they meant it as a cutting insult, but that’s not what those ideas are to him.

He loses himself more than once, gazing across at her office, imagining her stopping her work, looking over at him, and indulging herself. Jaime knows it’s not a thing that will ever happen, not with Brienne being so shy, not after everything that went down at the coffee shop – but he can dream, and he thinks about her unbuttoning her jeans, sliding a hand down to stroke herself. 

Jaime can’t help wondering what Brienne likes. Does she play with her nipples, cup her small breasts in her hand and tease herself? Or just get straight to the point? Her office is far enough away that he wouldn’t see too much detail, but would he be able to see how wet and glistening she’d be? Her thighs sticky with want as she rubs at herself? 

Jaime imagines the way her head would fall back as she gave into the feeling of it all, biting at her lips and letting small noises escape her. It would kill him not to hear it, but he can imagine so much, like the way her muscles would seize up when she finally climaxed, how powerful and vulnerable she’d be at the same time.

But then he snaps back to reality and she’s there, fully-clothed, working away and he’s suddenly praying that the computer in front of him is blocking her view of his aching cock.

Still, the daydreams are a nice distraction from the actual reality of his life.

Cersei has been sending him increasingly unhinged voicemails and texts. She alternates between trying to seduce him into coming back and screaming about how much he'll regret leaving her, all the ways she can destroy him.

Cersei _does_ see the photo from the fight, and sends half a dozen text messages asking Jaime what he did to get stuck in the same room as such a horrid cow.

Through his sister's eyes, Brienne is too tall, too muscular, devoid of any femininity. She's dull and freakish, a horror that should be hidden away for everyone's sake. Cersei would cut Brienne down in seconds, seizing on any weak spots in her personality and clawing them open. 

Jaime wonders how many women like Cersei Brienne has met. 

The wench has given him a second chance, but it turns out Jaime has no idea what to do with it. He tries to banter as usual at the gym but finds himself second-guessing every word that comes out of his mouth, searching for possible double meanings. 

Lions don’t concern themselves with the opinions of sheep, his father always says, and it turns out that Jaime isn’t sure what you’re supposed to do when you actually care what someone thinks of you.

Everything comes out awkward and stilted somehow. Jaime thinks Brienne even looks hurt, once n a while, when Jaime flees instead of talking to her. 

Brienne must really mean it when she says she forgives him though, because Cookie Girl introduces herself as Gilly and presents him with a butterscotch oatmeal cookie one day after Brienne's class. Jaime takes it for the olive branch that it is.

Even better, Margaery lets it slip that they're having a bonfire for the Azor Ahai festival. Jaime thinks the followers of the Lord of Light are the biggest bunch of crackpots he's ever seen, but who cares if it's another opportunity to try to make things up to Brienne.

All hail R’hollor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reality of it all is slowly seeping into Jaime's lust-addled brain.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime crashes the bonfire.

Jaime drags Tyrion and Bronn with him to the bonfire. He needs backup, or at least to look less like a friendless loser. They come, because Bronn is attracted to parties like a moth to a flame and Tyrion just wants to see the woman who’s been causing Jaime such distraction in person.

Tyrion makes him take a couple of shots of tequila after Jaime confesses how awkward he's been, to, quote, get him to stop overthinking this, unquote.

Jaime's pretty sure not thinking is where he fucked up initially so he's not sure that’s the best idea but he rolls with it.

He nearly swallows his tongue when he sees Brienne in shorts for the first time, what seems like acres of freckled leg on display, and a blue shirt that exposes her incredibly strong arms and makes her eyes seem even more extraordinary. 

Her legs go on for miles, and he wants them wrapped around his hips. Or his shoulders. He’s not picky about the order in which those happen.

Tyrion, the little bastard, brings up her height immediately, but somehow Brienne doesn't take offense. It isn't long before Tyrion and Bronn wander off to flirt – Jaime is pretty sure Ygritte isn't on the market but there's no way he's telling Bronn that when he can watch him humiliate himself instead – and he's left standing awkwardly next to Brienne.

"Blue's a good color on you," he says, and is pleased when her cheeks flush a familiar pink. 

There's a bar (somehow) and food that's cooked on sticks, which Jaime is pretty horrified by, but nobody else seems to care. Apparently cooking on sticks is a thing that people do, which makes Jaime question the general sanity of humanity. 

Jaime can feel the quiet settling in again, awkward and stifling. Brienne has been resolutely staring at the ocean, and Jaime knows he needs to say something, but his usual capacity to speak seems to have inconveniently deserted him.

Jon has a guitar, which, again, no surprises there, and it’s not long before the sound of music and drunken singing fills the air.

At least it covers the silence between him and the wench.

"Do you do this every year?" he finally asks, watching Brienne as she gazes at the fire.

The sun is starting to set on the water, and everything is taking on a golden hue. He doesn't know if it's that or the company of her friends, but Brienne looks softer here, somehow. 

It's a good look on her.

Jaime stretches out on the sand next to her. He'd love nothing more than to reach over and run his hand up her leg, see if the skin there is as soft as it was the one time he'd touched her wrist. But he's pretty sure that’s not a thing friends do, so he refrains, getting as close to her as he dares without touching. 

"No," Brienne says softly. "I don't ... I haven't known everyone long."

That's a surprise, because every single person he's met seems fiercely devoted to the wench. Not that he blames them. 

"It's nice," Jaime says. 

Brienne hums her agreement.

"I mean, I'm not sure Ygritte isn’t going to try to perform a human sacrifice using Bronn, but otherwise."

"Only if Arya doesn't sacrifice Gendry first," Brienne says, nodding at the pair. 

Jaime starts feeling the overwhelming urge to apologize again, even though he knows that's a bad idea, or start trying to tell her how much he wants her, which he's pretty sure is an even worse idea, so he decides to start trying to fire scrye instead.

Brienne is not impressed.

Jaime doesn't care, because it gives him an excuse to get closer to her under the pretense of showing her what he's seeing in the fire. It's like everything was before he put his foot in his mouth, they fall back into their old banter. He kneels behind her, and when she stops arguing with him, he can't resist the urge to drop his hand to her bare arm. 

Her skin is soft as he gently strokes it, and she goes tense in his arms, but she doesn't pull away or punch him, and Jaime can't stop himself from leaning forward to whisper in her ear, feeling her shiver slightly.

Brienne is so close, so still in his arms, like she’s afraid moving will scare him off, and Jaime wonders what she’d do if he moved to kiss her cheek. 

He doesn’t think she’d punch him. 

Not too hard, anyway.

Then his phone buzzes. And keeps buzzing. Enough that he can’t justify ignoring it.

Jaime doesn't even have to see what's in the string of messages from his father and Cersei to know something is going terribly wrong. 

Part of him wants to put the phone away and put his arms back around Brienne and pretend that none of this is happening, but he can't. Just because he's not with Cersei doesn't mean he doesn't care about her, as his family, and he has no choice but to pull away and go deal with whatever catastrophe she's wrought now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horny Jaime is Horny. I warned you guys, lol.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei tries to lure Jaime back to her side.

Jaime really wishes he'd stayed on the beach. 

There are police at the Baratheons – again – and Cersei's left a string of hysterical messages begging him to come help her.

That alone makes Jaime suspicious, because Cersei hasn't asked for his help in years. 

Tyrion gets in touch with their father, who informs both men that Joffrey has had another incident.

From what Jaime can piece together it involves a girlfriend, a crossbow, and a significant amount of drugs.

To Tyrion and Tywin, Cersei maintains that nothing is wrong. It's simply a misunderstanding. You know how teens can be, she tells them. Luckily for Joffrey (and unfortunately for her), the girl he's been dating is from an unremarkable family with enough debt to accept a pile of cash in exchange for parroting Cersei’s version of the story to the police and never speaking of it again.

To Jaime, Cersei is a hysterical mess, sending him phone calls and claiming she's afraid of what will happen. Of the girl's father, of their father, of the police, and insisting that it's his job to come protect her. Her and the children, she adds, as if Myrcella and Tommen don't look terrified every time he sees them. They certainly aren’t being protected, not from what Jaime can tell.

Which isn’t much, considering how little Cersei lets the family interact with her children.

Jaime knows full well that his sister is as helpless as a dragon. What she wants is for Jaime to drop everything and run back to her because she asked. 

Just like he has so many times. 

The thing is, it's so ingrained in him that he's in a car and halfway towards the Baratheon estate before he figures it out and pulls off to the side of the road. 

"Fuck," Jaime says, slamming his fist into the steering wheel. "Fuck."

Why is he always so weak for her?

_I need you_ , Cersei’s latest text reads. _Jaime please, I’m afraid_.

Jaime can’t remember the last time Cersei had said that to him. When their mother died, maybe? He can remember her then, cuddling into his side. When their cuddling was still innocent and pure.

Or maybe it was when she decided to marry Robert, presenting the plan with an edge of panic about their relationship being exposed. Telling him that she had to do it, but she’d never love Robert, she’d only love Jaime. Then fucking him in the hallway of his apartment, hard and fast, and scrambling off him as quickly as possible because she needed to get to her engagement photoshoot.

Jaime can remember what she felt like then, soft and warm and sweet, but gone from his arms so quick, like she’d never really been there at all.

Then he thinks of Brienne, earlier at the beach, his arms wrapping around her sturdy frame. Brienne hadn’t moved away from him, had allowed him to touch her and get close to her, even if she’d turned several shades of red.

Brienne, who is giving him a second chance even though he’s said things to her that she thought were cruel and mocking. Even if he intended them as flirting, that doesn’t change the fact that he’d been like the men who mocked her and wanted to tear her down. But she’s still letting him try again.

Jaime turns the car around and goes home.

Cersei, predictably, is livid.

"You can't leave me," she screams at Jaime over the phone, the one time he mistakenly picks up. "I won't allow it."

When that doesn't work, she ropes her kids in as well. Jaime starts getting texts from Tommen and Myrcella asking him to come help them.

Neither child has been allowed to contact him before, and he can't even remember the last time he saw them without a roomful of family around. Jaime can hardly remember the last time Cersei allowed him to speak to them directly. 

But now they're texting Uncle Jaime, saying how worried they are and how scared Mommy is.

Tommen is six, he shouldn't even be using a phone. And Cersei shouldn’t be worrying either of her children with her personal drama. 

Tyrion thinks he’s going to cave, Jaime can tell, and honestly he probably would if things were like they used to be. If he hadn’t met Brienne, with her strange appeal and innocence and remarkable kindness. Even after Kettleback.

Part of him still wants to to back to Cersei. One very specific part, actually, because Jaime can’t help thinking about how good it would be to feel Cersei wrapped around him again, the way her cunt grips him, the way she moans and gasps underneath him. 

They’ve been together their entire lives, and Jaime knows it would be so amazing if he went back. They know everything about each other, how to make it so good. Fucking is second nature for them, always hot, always wonderful.

But then he thinks about Brienne and her blushes and the way she’s slowly warming up to him, how soft her skin felt under his fingers. Jaime has no idea how Brienne would like to be touched, and she has no idea about him. It would be awkward and unfamiliar, and Jaime doesn’t even know how to begin to think about being with a woman who’s never been with anyone before. He has no idea how to make it good, how to be kind and gentle, but Jaime thinks he’d like to find out.

Jaime feels sick at the thought of what Brienne would say about this, about how Cersei behaves, about the fact that _he’s been fucking his sister_ for decades.

He thinks about how damn disappointed Brienne would probably be, if Jaime went back to someone who’s so cruel and unfaithful.

Jaime’s reminding himself to stick to his decisions when he hears the banging on his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is trying very hard to break away, but patterns are hard to interrupt. And much like show Cersei, Cersei is using emotions and faux vulnerability to try to guilt him back since seducing him hasn't worked. 
> 
> Unlike the show incident, the girl Joffrey shoots with a crossbow lives, because he's too high to aim properly. After receiving a large pile of cash, the girl's family agree to say that the two were just playing around with a crossbow and it went wrong and of course, they shouldn't have been on drugs or messing with weapons, but youthful indiscretions happen.
> 
> It is not the first time Joffrey has had a youthful indiscretion, and there are several Gold Cloaks whose bank accounts have much more money than they should, who somehow always manage to get called out to the Baratheons and somehow never find anything wrong.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you haven't read the first one, here's where it starts to get dark for a bit. And since this is from Jaime's POV, who is experiencing things, and not Brienne observing it's ... really pretty dark. Fair warning. 
> 
> It will all end okay by the end of the fic, I can promise you that.

The first punch takes Jaime by surprise. It’s fast, and comes before he can even start to defend himself, because who has their guard up answering their own door?

Not Jaime.

He still manages to get a few hits in, hears one of the burly men groan with pain, but there’s at least three of them, maybe four, and they have the element of surprise on their side. 

Jaime feels the punches land, hears the sound of his own skull hitting the floor with a crack when he falls. They kick his ribs, his crotch, his sides, but the one that makes him scream is the boot that comes down hard on his right wrist.

It crunches sickeningly, and Jaime just keeps screaming and screaming, high-pitched and hysterical. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from him.

One of them kicks him in the teeth after that, telling him to shut up, but Jaime isn’t screaming on purpose. It’s involuntary, the way he’s howling in pain as he feels the bones breaking under his skin.

It’s also _loud_ , and Jaime thinks later that’s what makes the thugs leave, because surely somebody will hear.

Nobody hears.

Jaime doesn’t know how long he lies on the floor, screaming until his voice goes, then whimpering instead. The walls go in and out of focus. He tries to drag himself to the couch, to his phone, but barely gets a few inches before he collapses again and can’t move.

Blood flows around him.

It smells sharp and metallic, and he watches it, the widening circle of red. Lannister red, Jaime thinks, like the walls, like the paint. The last color he’ll ever see and isn’t that just fucking fitting.

He’d rather see blue. Blue like the ocean near his home, like Brienne’s eyes. 

Jaime thinks that it’s a shame he’s going to die before he ever gets a chance to know what it’s like to kiss her, to see how sweet she’d be. To let her know how he sees her, how beautiful she is in his eyes.

The pool of blood gets bigger.

So does the blackness encroaching on the edge of Jaime’s vision.

When Jaime opens his eyes again, everything is moving. It’s loud and confusing and voices are all around, talking in sharp tones. Every movement sends pain streaking through his body.

Jaime doesn’t know what’s wrong, can’t tell anymore what’s injured, because there’s so much pain that it’s everywhere at once. 

“Sir,” a man says, his face coming into focus above Jaime’s. “We’re taking good care of you.”

The world goes black again.

There’s another face, this one with a mask over her face, green cap on her head. 

“It’s going to be okay, sir,” she says. “Just breathe deeply.”

Something covers Jaime’s mouth.

It goes dark again.

When he wakes up again, Jaime feels like he’s under water. His hand doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts anymore. He feels oddly disconnected from his body, like a balloon on a string, floating high above the ground. But when Jaime tries to talk he can’t, and there’s something in his throat and he’s panicking and there’s a shrill beeping and then a voice saying “calm down, Mr. Lannister,” and then –

Darkness.

It comes in waves like that.

Light. Noise. Beeping, steady and constant next to his head. 

Darkness.

White walls, white ceiling, so much white, so unlike his apartment. 

The the black swallows him up again. 

A nurse is there once, her face full of sorrow.

“Your brother wanted me to tell you he had to go to Braavos,” she says. “For work. He’ll be back soon.”

Then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've seen soft, horny Jaime because he's in the midst of crush energy. And we've been getting a bit of Jaime who's got this cycle with Cersei. Now we're going to get a lot of self-loathing Jaime, as he has to deal with trauma and his family and his past.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime starts to recover in the hospital.

Jaime can’t tell if he’s been in the hospital room for days or weeks or hours. He wakes up once in a while, briefly, stares at the white ceiling, before he’s drug back under in haze of exhaustion. 

One time he wakes up and thinks maybe he died, because Brienne is next to his bed. Or he thinks he wakes up. Maybe he’s dreaming. 

Maybe this is one of the heavens.

He’s probably not dead, though, because Jaime is certainly destined for the deepest of the seven hells and Brienne would never belong there.

“Wench,” he tries to say, but the damn tube is still in his throat. 

She turns her big blue eyes on him, covers one of his hands with her own. “It’s okay, Jaime,” she says.

Her hand is so soft, the skin so warm, it’s almost as large as his and he never, ever wants her to move it.

She’s saying something but he can’t tell what it is, when his eyes flutter shut despite his best efforts to keep them open.

Jaime doesn’t know what’s a dream and what’s waking. He hears the knock on his door. He feels the impact of boots hitting his body. He thinks he sees a flash of red next to his bed one time, it reminds him of the blood pooling around him and he screams and screams until it’s dark again.

Jaime can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Sometimes he thinks he sees Brienne. Sometimes there’s nothing. Sometimes he thinks he hears her voice. Sometimes he hears his own screams.

The next time he wakes up is different, because suddenly everything hurts. The tube is gone, but his throat is raw and drier than the Red Waste. 

“How are you feeling, Mr. Lannister?” asks the nurse standing next to the bed. She holds out a cup with a straw. He sucks greedily, every drop of water a balm to his battered body.

Jaime groans. 

There’s a vase of flowers next to his bed, he realizes. And a cluster of balloons with cheery well-wishes.

Jaime wonders how they got delivered here and what happened to the poor patient meant to receive them. 

“We’re reducing your pain medication,” the nurse explains.

That would explain why he feels like he’s been trampled by a dragon.

“The doctor will be in soon,” the nurse says, giving him a pitying look.

Jaime realizes why when Dr. Qyburn comes in and brusquely informs him that he came very close to meeting the Stranger and, oh yes, they’ve removed his right hand.

That doesn’t make sense at all, because his hand hurts, it’s screaming in pain. Except when Jaime looks down, all he sees is his arm, coming to an abrupt end at the wrist, bulky bandages encasing it. 

His _hand_. Jaime doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do – he’s right handed, how is he supposed to do anything?

Gods, he’s shit at most things with two hands, he’ll be a disaster with only one. 

Jaime’s still wrapping his head around it – he had a hand, and now he doesn’t – when Brienne walks in the door.

He hadn’t imagined her. She’s there, in the doorway, blue eyes and strong arms and she’s got a — a stuffed lion in her hands?

The balloons and flowers suddenly make more sense.

“It was you,” he says, the worry easing for just a moment and he feels almost normal. 

Until she tries to hand him the lion and, gods, it really is for him, a Lannister lion, and Jaime reaches to take it but he can’t. Because he has no hand. 

Reality crashes back down on him then. Brienne is strong, she’s smart, she’s amazing and there’s no way she’ll ever look twice at a useless, one-handed old man. 

That’s all he is now, a cripple with even less to offer anyone than he had before. 

His chance is gone, Jaime thinks bleakly, as he struggles to form words to answer her questions.

He’d only barely begun to claw his way back into Brienne’s good graces after his own stupid behavior, and now he’ s damaged goods, a waste of space with nothing to offer.

Brienne doesn’t come back. Not the rest of the week, or the following ones when he’s stuck in the dull hospital room, the lion mocking him from its spot on his pillow.

Nobody else comes either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this chapter is ... not much cheerier than yesterday. Tomorrow is gonna be chock full of loneliness and self-loathing as well, but it'll start to move towards happier things after that.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime returns home and has to cope with the reality of his new life.

Tyrion gets back from Braavos the day before Jaime is released from the hospital. 

Jaime hasn’t looked in a mirror since he arrived. He hasn’t been able to shower, or shave, or keep much food down. He doesn’t want to see what he looks like. The look on Tyrion’s face confirms that it is as bad as he fears.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Tyrion says.

“Father,” Jaime guesses. 

Tyrion nods. 

“It’s gone,” Jaime says, looking at his hand. 

“Who sent this?” Tyrion asks, picking up the lion and fiddling with it. Jaime nearly growls as he snatches it away, clumsily, with his left hand.

“Brienne,” he says. 

“She’s been visiting?” Tyrion says, looking hopeful.

“Once,” Jaime says shortly. 

So what if he’s kept the lion on his bed every night since? Or cuddled it as he cried silently into his pillow from pain?

“Oh,” Tyrion says. He clears his throat. “She’s the one that called. She saw you. On the floor.”

Jaime’s heart skips a beat. “They said I could have died.”

“You did. Twice. On the table.” 

Jaime thinks it would be better if he’d stayed that way.

Bronn and Tyrion take him home when he’s released. The apartment has been cleaned, every trace of his blood gone from the polished hardwood floors. Jaime still feels like vomiting as they cross the threshold, thinking about the last time he was here.

There’s a home health nurse, too. She’s perky and talkative, telling Jaime he’ll be back on his feet in no time as she helps him into a pair of pajama pants. 

Jaime’s fairly certain he doesn’t own pajamas, so he’s not sure where they came from.

The nurse won’t let him stay in bed, so he lies on the sofa instead. But that’s as far as he’s willing to cooperate, no matter how much she natters on about exercises and rehab and adjusting to his new, different abilities. 

Jaime wants to throw her out the window. 

None of the other nurses are any better. They give him the kind of smiles you direct at a particularly cranky toddler as they assure him he’ll be back to normal in no time.

He’s not going to be normal ever again, not unless someone figures out how to grow new hands.

Jaime tries not to look at Brienne. When he glances over, he sees her as usual. Sitting in her office, drinking her coffee, having lunch with the pervy friend group. Although none of them look his way anymore. 

Why would they? There can’t be much fun in staring at a broken man with a body that’s wasting away. 

Brienne’s practically glowing with health, and he wishes that he could, for just a moment, borrow some of it. Or just be near her again, see those amazing eyes up close. He finds himself staring at her often, just watching the fluid way she moves as she goes about her day. 

But Brienne wants nothing to do with him. 

Tyrion comes by with a stack of information on prosthetics. 

“You can get one that looks almost like a real hand,” Tyrion says, waving one of the pages in front of him.

“How about a hook?” Bronn asks from where he’s slouched on a chair, drinking a glass of Jaime’s very expensive bourbon. “I’d want a hook, I think.”

“You can also get different materials. Ones that look realistic, or decorated however you like,” Tyrion says. “Although I can’t imagine Father being happy with that.”

“Not unless it’s gold,” Jaime says.

It’s just as well that Bronn is raiding his liquor cabinet, considering Jaime spills more than he manages to eat or drink. Better in Bronn’s stomach than on the floor. 

“You can get specialized prostheses for different activities,” Tyrion says, shuffling the papers. “There’s also ones that attach to your muscles, so you can control them. Very realistic.”

“Can they get me a real hand?” Jaime asks. “Grow it in a lab somewhere?”

Tyrion frowns. 

“Then why bother?” 

“Jaime,” Tyrion starts. “You can’t just –”

“Has Father talked to you?” Jaime interrupts. “Because he hasn’t talked to me. Except to ask when I’d be able to come back to work. And to tell me he’ll find me a new role in the company.” 

One that doesn’t involve talking to people, although that’s the only thing Jaime’s ever been good for. 

“There’s more to life than work,” Tyrion says, as if that and hiring whores isn’t all he does.

Like Jaime doesn’t have the only two people he can call friends sitting in this room. He’s related to one of them and the other is getting paid. 

If it was anyone else’s life, he’d laugh and call it pathetic.

“Let’s face it,” Jaime says. “There’s no point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Lannisters are wealthy enough to afford home health aides, so Jaime doesn't have to go to a rehab facility.
> 
> There are some very cool, custom prosthetics out there especially with the rise of 3D printing. Perhaps eventually, Jaime will get one that looks like something he finds interesting instead of what Tywin wants.
> 
> Also, as much as Jaime hates and doesn't understand his job, his father has done a good job of making sure it, and the family, are all Jaime really has. Needless to say, Tywin did not anticipate Brienne. 
> 
> Who will be returning next chapter! This is the conversation that makes Tyrion go talk to her.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime gets a visit.

The knock on his door almost sends Jaime into a panic. He feels it rising in his throat until the pattern registers. It’s Tyrion. His brother had come up with the idea of a specific series of knocks after arriving one day and, getting no response, using his key to let himself in to find Jaime curled up on the floor, breathing like he’d run a marathon.

They’d knocked before they attacked him.

Whoever they were. 

_Tyrion_ , Jaime reminds himself, taking a deep breath before getting to the door.

But it’s not Tyrion on the other side. It’s Brienne, tall and amazing with guilt written all over her face.

Jaime briefly considers shutting the door and going back to the sofa without a word.

But he wants to be near her, even if he doesn’t want her pity and so he lets her in. 

Jaime realizes he is far less gracious in accepting Brienne’s apology than she was accepting his. He should be less of a jerk, but he hurts and he’s missing a hand and he doesn’t care.

Except he does care, because part of him wants to beg her to stay.

It doesn’t stop Jaime from throwing her words back in her face, her attempts at consolation.

He doesn't need her to feel sorry for him, to come and sit with the sad, disabled man as her good deed for the day.

Brienne tries to tell him he’s still got a future, even if it’s different than it was before the beating. The very idea makes Jaime feel sick.

“What else should I do? It's not like I'm going to be able to box again. And I'm sure an old, one-handed man is surely a catch for all the ladies of Kings Landing.” He knows how bitter it sounds, but nothing he’s said is untrue.

"Oh, don't be absurd," Brienne snaps. 

"I'm absurd?"

"Yes. You are. You don't like your job? Get a different one,” Brienne says, full of righteousness. “You want to fight? Start by getting off your sofa and doing your rehab.”

Rehab. What a joke that is. Being told to sit there and squeeze stupid balls with his left hand and try to pick up tiny beads with chopsticks or what the fuck ever.

“And don't you dare talk to me about not being wanted – even one-handed you still look like, well, you," Brienne continues, redness rising on her cheeks.

That’s interesting enough to pull Jaime out of his train of self-flagellation.

"Are you saying I'm handsome?" He feels like an idiot for asking, but – well, she’s looked plenty, but she’s never actually said she found him attractive.

Jaime tries not to get his hopes up over the fact that she’s saying it now, when he sits across from her one-handed and a shadow of the man he once was.

"You know that you are," she says, sounding like she’s annoyed to have to admit it. "And as someone who isn't, let me assure you that life without romance is entirely possible."

Jaime remembers the comments the two assholes had thrown at her and feels a stab of guilt.

"I was talking about sex, actually," he says, before he can lose control of his faculties and start telling her all the reasons she should be romanced. Or how amazing she is, looking like the Warrior and Maiden personified and how he longs to drop to his knees and worship her.

As if she’d let him touch her now, broken and pathetic.

"Still true," she tells him blandly.

That’s right. She is a maiden and Jaime isn’t sure if he loves that or hates it. Because she is far too glorious to be untouched, and yet he’s jealously hoped that he might be the only one to get to show her how wonderful it can be.

Although he’s hardly likely to get the chance now, even if she does admit that he’s handsome. It’s hardly likely to be wonderful either, if he’s left to clumsily paw at her with his left hand. 

Brienne deserves better than the awkward fumblings of a man who can’t even eat a meal without spilling it down his front.

"If I get better, will you fight me?" Jaime asks, instead of continuing to dwell. 

Brienne doesn’t shoot the suggestion down immediately, the way she usually does.

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has some PTSD going on here. Unsurprisingly. It's not helping his efforts to be gracious, and combined with his internalized belief that he's useless now ... yeah.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friendship grows.

Against all reason and good sense, Brienne keeps coming by this time, instead of disappearing. Jaime is pathetically, pitifully grateful every time she shows up. 

Brienne brings him food, an assortment of delicious pies and cakes and savory dishes. When he asks if she made them, she laughs and tells him it’s Gilly.

It’s the first time Jaime’s heard her laugh, and it’s loud and braying and the best thing he thinks he’s ever heard. 

Gilly is a talented baker. Jaime can tell, even though most food still tastes like ash in his mouth. It’s easier with Brienne there, somehow. And everything she brings can easily be eaten one handed, tender and able to be cut with a fork. His heart aches with gratitude, because he’s been surviving on soup and smoothies for too long.

Jaime starts putting on weight. Which is probably for the best, though he wishes it were muscle. Gone are the definition in his abs and the sharp lines of his chest.

He wonders if Brienne notices the decline in his physique.

Brienne, Jaime learns as she opens up, grew up on Tarth with a father who sounds like something out of an old-fashioned TV show. Brienne’s eyes light up and she becomes more animated talking about him and how he took her hiking along the shores and mountains of Tarth when she was young and had no friends. She forgets to hide her mouth with her hands when she smiles as she talks about it, showing her teeth.

They’re large, Jaime thinks, and she has an overbite, but the joy in her face when she really smiles more than makes up for it. 

Jaime could listen to her talk for hours about her childhood, lonely as his but in a different way. He listens to her talk about getting her first computer and the internet, and learning everything she could about them because she had nothing else to do.

Jaime doesn’t understand how people ignored her, couldn’t see the kindness and spirit in her, the way that her strength is just as sexy as anything else.

Except if he had met her years ago, he probably would have been one of them, still enthralled by Cersei’s delicate and deliberate beauty. He would have seen Brienne only as a large, lumbering beast.

Even if Jaime had realized that some part of him finds her ugliness and build incredibly attractive, he wouldn’t have acted on it when he was committed to his sister.

Jaime is glad he didn’t meet Brienne then.

Brienne is appalled when she realizes the depths of his ignorance of pop culture. Tywin Lannister had no time for frivolous things, nor did his children, and that was the end of it. Jaime had not been allowed to see the movies or TV shows his peers loved, which didn’t help with the isolation and paranoia that came with being a Lannister.

Sometimes, if he was feeling generous, Twyin would allow the children to see a few selected films, if their grades were satisfactory and they were successful in their extracurriculars.

Jaime never had the grades to be allowed, burning with jealousy as Cersei would come back airily gloating over the experience of seeing whatever movie, fingers still greasy with butter from the popcorn as she ran her hands along his body.

Tyrion would try his best to recount everything he could remember from the movies, give Jaime something to say when his classmates would inevitably discuss them in class rather than face laughter at his ignorance. But it wasn’t the same as seeing them himself. Usually Jaime would just affect an attitude of disdain and say he wasn’t amused by such boring entertainment if the subject came up.

He got good enough at it that most people believed him. 

When he was in his twenties, Jaime made an effort to catch up – he’s especially fond of anything featuring knights and heroes, and he loved seeing _Brightroar_ and _The Adventures of the Onion Knight._ But it was too much, and by then Tywin was riding Jaime’s ass at work, pouring more and more demands on him in an effort to make him into the model businessman he expected his son to be.

Jaime expects Brienne to laugh at him, the way people have the few times he’s made a half-hearted attempt to engage with anyone outside the family, but instead she just brings over DVDs and starts showing him her favorites.

Jaime tries to spend more time watching the movies than watching Brienne, but it’s hard when she’s curled up on the sofa next to him, just out of arm’s reach. He watches the way she smiles and unconsciously mouths her favorite lines with the actors, the way she still tenses up at close calls for the characters, and the way she sometimes glances shyly over at him to see his reaction.

Jaime reminds himself that she’s not going to want him any more (if she ever really did), not broken as he is, when he’s tempted to reach over and draw her closer to his side. 

She would be so warm, he thinks, so solid and comforting beside him. 

But Jaime is an old and broken man, and Brienne is a young woman full of health and power.

Tyrion thinks he’s being absurd, when Jaime wistfully recalls one evening that Brienne had stayed watching movies and talking until she realized it was two in the morning and she still had to go to work the next day. 

“Just make a move already,” Tyrion says, exasperated. 

“Weren’t you telling me to be careful before?”

“There’s careful and then there’s glacial.”

“Besides, I pissed her off,” Jaime says. “I’m lucky she’s being friends with me. She shouldn’t want to date me after how I acted.”

“Yes, but she’s clearly a very forgiving girl,” Tyrion says. “If she’s put up with you for so long.”

“She’ll never be interested,” Jaime says. “Not now.”

“Oh yes, that’s why she’s spending all this time with you.”

“Besides,” Jaime says, waving his stump around. 

It still disgusts him, but he’s trying very hard to adjust. He’s even putting up with the physical therapists and specialists that take him through a series of exercises. 

If only because of the way Brienne beams at him when he tells her that he’s making an effort.

“It’s a hand, not the end of the world,” Tyrion says.

“Yeah,” Bronn agrees. “You’ve still got your cock, don’t you?”

Jaime grits his teeth. “She deserves more.” 

“Undoubtedly. But she seems to like you,” Tyrion says. 

Jaime wishes very much that were true. 

“She pities me,” he says, as much a reminder to himself as to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of Tywin's A+ parenting here, obviously. 
> 
> Brightroar and The Adventure of the Onion Knight are similar to Excalibur and The Adventures of Robin Hood.
> 
> Bronn is a very practical man. Or something.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are revealed, and Jaime has to cope with the reality of his attack.

It’s almost the end of summer when Tyrion comes over and sits Jaime down with a very serious expression. 

“The Gold Cloaks finished the investigation,” he says without preamble. 

“And?” 

“It was an organized crime gang known as the Bloody Mummers,” Tyrion tells him. “They do hits for hire. Very discreet, usually very effective.”

“Okay?” Jaime isn’t sure where this is going. But Tyrion looks far more serious than usual.

It’s not like people haven’t tried to kill Lannisters before.

Tyrion takes a deep breath. “The leader broke under pressure. Jaime … Jaime, it was Cersei.”

And the world tilts on its axis. 

“No,” he says. 

Tyrion’s eyes are full of sorrow. “They don’t have proof, just his word, so Father has convinced them to bury any connection. But Jaime, it was her.”

“Why?” And he hates that his voice breaks, that it feels like his broken heart is still shattering.

“Jaime.”

“Why?” Jaime knows he sounds desperate, he feels desperate, but this is wrong, it’s all wrong.

Cersei is his twin. She’s mad at him, yes, but she’ll get over it. She will. They should have ended their relationship years ago, Jaime knows that and Cersei has always been smarter so she does too, but they’re still twins.

One soul in two bodies, Cersei always says. That’s how everything started in the first place, how it all got so mixed up and twisted.

They were never allowed to have friends, always told to keep everyone at a distance, but they had each other. Always each other, to hug and reassure and comfort. 

Jaime feels guilty when he thinks about it, because he knows that meant Tyrion was alone, was left with nobody to care for him. Jaime tried, he did, but Cersei never liked anyone getting Jaime’s attention for too long.

“She said – Jaime, are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes.” 

“She said that nobody turns their back on her.”

Cersei had said the same to him, when they were fighting, when she was trying to get him to come back.

Cersei always set the rules in their relationship. She was the one to come to Jaime and kiss him, the first time, the one to say they should have sex the first time, stroking Jaime’s arm and gazing up at him with wide eyes and saying she didn’t trust anyone else. Because everyone wants something from the Lannisters. Cersei decided when they would meet and where, to avoid suspicion, and how often.

But Jaime loved her so he went along with it. 

“I loved her,” Jaime says, breaking their rule of never speaking directly about his and Cersei’s relationship.

“I know.”

“I would have given up everything for her.”

“I know.”

“She _used_ me,” Jaime says, and then he actually is crying, despite his best efforts.

Tyrion pours them both a drink, then several more. Jaime keeps drinking after he leaves, keeps going through at least a bottle and a half of expensive alcohol better meant to be savored and not swilled like he’s a pirate. He ignores the fact that half of it ends up on his chest or the floor or the furniture.

When Brienne shows up, he’s on the floor. The room is spinning and he can’t feel his remaining fingers or his toes and his lips are tingling, but all he can think about is what Tyrion said. 

Brienne, bless her, uses her beautiful arms and strong legs and hauls him up off the floor, smelling like coconuts and promise and Jaime wishes he could stay there with her holding him up forever. 

But he can’t, and when he’s lying on the sofa, staring up at her, he’s horrified to realize that the whole story is tumbling from his lips. 

Cersei. He tells her about Cersei, about the deeply disgusting, sinful relationship they had, and she’s going to hate him after this, hate him and be disgusted like she should be.

Because he’s disgusting and broken.

But Brienne just tells him she doesn’t hate him, almost like she means it, and he’s trying to tell her that he’s different now, that he’s different because of _her_ , he didn’t go back this time because of _her_ , when he finally, blessedly, passes out.

Jaime wakes up with a pounding head and a mouth that tastes like something crawled in it and died. He’s in his bed, and from somewhere he calls up a dim memory of Brienne walking him into the room, helping him slide under the covers.

Jaime cringes with shame when he realizes that she would have seen the stuffed lion she brought him placed on the pillow where he keeps it. He was never allowed to have a stuffed animal as a child, to sleep with and cuddle, but now he’s a 42-year old man who’s unhealthily attached to a stuffed toy and _Brienne knows it_.

Everything hurts. Even his hair hurts. Jaime can’t remember the last time he was this hungover. He thinks it might have been in college.

It’s a few moments later that the rest of the night comes back to him and Jaime realizes that Brienne knows everything, every bit of how grotesque and unredeemable he is. 

While he’s busy losing the contents of his stomach into the toilet, Jaime reminds himself that he never really had a chance anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has some serious self-loathing going on, and it gets worse any time he has to interact with his family or think about them. 
> 
> Ironically, he worries about Brienne judging the lion, which she doesn't do, and not about her judging how impersonal the rest of his apartment is, which she does.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Jaime's confession.

It must be a miracle, and Jaime doesn’t know what he’s done in his life to deserve it, but Brienne _comes back_.

The first time she shows up after that night he just stares at her in the doorway, waiting for the blow to come. Waiting for her to tell him that she’s gone to the papers, to tell the world what trash he is. Or that she’s never going to speak to him again. That she’s disgusted, that she hates him, that she’s disappointed in who he is.

Maybe she’ll just punch him.

But all Brienne does is hold up a plate with one of Gilly’s pies, and tell him that she’s brought a TV series she thinks he’ll enjoy. 

Jaime couldn’t tell you much about the series – something about aliens? – because he spends the entire night staring at Brienne whenever she’s not looking, wondering what she’s doing here.

She comes back again, after that, again and again like he hasn’t just told her that he’s an incestuous monster. 

Jaime doesn’t know what it is about Brienne that makes her so forgiving and kind, but for the first time in years, he goes to a Sept and prays to the Seven in thanks for it.

As promised, Tywin manages to shut down the investigation into Jaime’s beating. Which is what he’s calling it, instead of attempted murder, which it actually was. The leader had let that slip too.

The Bloody Mummers still get arrested, but Cersei skates free. 

Thankfully she has the sense not to contact Jaime again.

Tyrion worries about the children. Cersei has always been vengeful and fond of holding grudges, but attempted murder is a new low, especially when the victim is her brother. And former lover, though none of them say that out loud.

But with no charges against her and Tywin’s refusal to discuss the matter, there’s absolutely nothing to be done.

The physical therapists keep working with Jaime, trying to get him to be better with his left hand. 

Jaime can mostly function these days. He can manage simple foods and drinks with the facility of a clumsy adult instead of a toddler, and he’s slowly learning to write again. Not that his writing was all that good when he had his right hand. He’s even able to get dressed, using modified clothing, though he usually skips a shirt, because it’s far more fun to see Brienne blush sometimes at his topless state.

That’s a fun conversation with the home nurse.

Jaime keeps the pajama pants, mostly in deference to the many medical staff traipsing around in his place.

Jaime has almost forgotten how much time has passed, until he gets a call from Tywin briskly informing him that he is expected to be present at the family dinner for the Feast of the Mother.

Jaime tells his father that he can go fuck himself before throwing his phone at the wall.

Brienne, when he brings it up, is appalled.

“He expects you to be there? With _her_ ,” she says. It’s the first time she’s acknowledged his drunken confession.

“Keeping up appearances is the Lannister way,” Jaime says, with a wry twist of his lips. “Can’t have anyone catch wind of the oldest brother languishing away at home alone on such an important family holiday.”

Jaime isn’t deluding himself. Despite what he’s told his father, he’ll be there, probably frog-marched in by whichever minions his father sends to retrieve him.

“How would anyone know?”

“Oh, trust me, people will find out. And it would raise too many questions, me hiding out.”

“So don’t stay home,” Brienne says, and he stares at her blankly.

“Come with me,” Brienne tells him. “Renly and Loras hold a feast every year, for those of us too far away to go home. I’ve been going for ages.”

Jaime doesn’t understand. Why would she take him? Spending time with him in the privacy of his own apartment is one thing, bringing him somewhere in public, somewhere with her friends, is another. 

It would solve the problem of Twyin dragging him home.

But Brienne takes his hesitation for something else. 

“I mean, if you want to. I understand if you’d rather – well, I’m not the best company.”

As if the hours he spends with her aren’t the best he can remember.

“No! I mean, I’d like to. With you. But,” Jaime looks at his stump. “I’m not sure.”

Brienne’s eyes soften. 

“You’re going to have to leave this place eventually,” she says. Jaime isn’t so sure of that, the internet and delivery are wonderful things, but she keeps going. “Better it be with people who already know you than strangers.”

Jaime isn’t sure about that either, thinking of all the stares he’s likely to get with his deformity on display.

He wonders if Brienne has told her friends about Cersei.

“Do you really want to go to your father’s?” Brienne asks.

“Fine,” he grumbles. 

It can’t be worse than dealing with his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The TV series is The X-Files, or the Westerosi equivalent. Mulder thinks dragons still exist, having been hidden by the government. Scully frequently reminds him that dragons died out after the battle between Daenerys and Cersei, before the Age of Queens. 
> 
> The home nurse is VERY confused and vaguely alarmed by Jaime's explanation about remaining topless. However, the job is one of the few that pays a decent wage, much more than the poverty-level state reimbursement, so she shuts up and ignores it. She can pay all her bills AND put a little away to maybe visit her sister for the first time in years, she's not looking a gift horse in the mouth.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime learns how other people celebrate holidays. Hint: it's better.

Renly and Loras’ place is absolute chaos.

Jaime has never really spent much time thinking about how other people celebrate holidays. If he had, he supposes he would have imagined a somewhat more casual atmosphere than the one at Casterly Rock, but still one that resembles the Lannister gatherings.

This is so far from that it might as well be another universe. 

At least, Jaime thinks, he won’t have to worry about being underdressed, since he was unable to manage the suit and tie he usually wears to such gatherings. 

Brienne had assured him it was casual, and she arrived to pick him up in a pair of jeans and a blue shirt that makes her eyes seem to glow. 

Lannister holidays are a formal affair. Were Jaime at Casterly right now, he’d be suffering through cocktails and small talk with his extended relations in one of the formal parlors, uniformed waiters silently passing by with trays of hors d'oeuvres. 

That would be followed by a trip to the dining room, where there would be a multi-course meal accompanied by stiff conversation about the Lannister business and legacy. The menu would be strictly traditional, and afterwards they would proceed back to the parlor where one of the teenage cousins would be forced to perform some sort of entertainment. Perhaps one judged to be good at piano or harp, or heavens knows what. 

The men would then troop off to Tywin’s study for scotch and more business talk. The children would be shuttled off to one of the informal parlors to quietly amuse themselves, if Jaime recalls, and he has no idea what the women of the family get up to. Cersei had always rolled her eyes and muttered about vapid harpies when asked. 

By the time everything was over, Jaime would be nursing a headache from grinding his teeth and a strong desire to fling himself in the path of an oncoming car.

This is nothing like that.

The townhouse is bursting at the seams with people, and Jaime can hear shouting from various directions. Loras takes the bottles of wine Jaime brought with a grin – which he should, it’s a vintage from Tyrion’s cellar that is highly prized by collectors – and Renly scoops up the tray Brienne had been carrying, which smells absolutely fucking delicious.

Margaery wraps him in a hug when the men vanish, and Jaime honestly can’t remember the last time anyone hugged him. Not with just friendliness (Cersei only hugged him if she wanted to seduce him); despite the low-cut dress and perfectly done make-up, it’s clear that Margaery has zero interest in him.

Jaime can see into the backyard, where a group of people have started a game of soccer, the Starks and Ygritte and the muscled kid from Brienne’s building and her puppy-like assistant Pod. 

Jaime is impressed when delicate Sansa Stark body checks Pod so hard he goes stumbling into the dirt as she steals the ball.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he mutters to Brienne.

“I know,” she grins. “Isn’t it great?”

Possibly, although Jaime’s suddenly conscious of how many people are here to witness his inevitable humiliation when he tries to manage a meal left-handed.

The first unexpected hurdle comes when he realizes that there is no table, no serving. Instead, people apparently fill plates and sit wherever, and Jaime feels panic welling up as he watches people balance plates in one hand while scooping up food with the other.

Brienne nudges him in the direction of the couch. “Go sit down,” she says, as if everything is fine and this is all perfectly normal. “If you don’t grab some seats, we’ll wind up on the floor and we’re both too tall for that. I’ll get the food.”

So he sits, sprawling over two seats, trying not to look conspicuous as other people start filling other spots. 

Brienne, may she be eternally blessed by the seven, has already cut up the food when she passes him a plate. “I skipped the haggis,” she says.

Jaime wrinkles his nose. “Good call.”

“Pussies,” Ygritte sniffs, as she saunters past them. “Real men aren’t afraid of a bit of sheep guts.”

“I’ll show you a real man,” Jaime shoots back, and Jon growls at him.

Jaime rolls his eyes. As if he’d actually do anything. Even if he was interested, the most likely outcome would involve the loss of his remaining limbs.

Ygritte just laughs. 

The couch is full and Jaime has not done a terribly good job of taking up space, so Brienne is scrunched up next to him, a fact he can’t bring himself to be terribly sorry about.

“Which one’s yours?” he asks, poking at his plate.

She gestures with her fork at a pile of sweet potatoes and Jaime groans when he takes a bite. Brienne’s said she’s not great at cooking, which neither is he, but this is amazing and he tells her so. Partly because it is and partly because he wants to see her turn red at the compliment.

It’s a lovely shade of scarlet.

Margaery swings by with glasses of wine and give Jaime a knowing smirk.

The food is incredible, and looks nothing like the formal menu he’s used to. There’s succulent duck and roast boar with crispy skin and all manner of sides. 

Jaime hasn’t had meat that isn’t in soup since he lost his hand, and while he’s still awkward with his left hand, he scoops up every morsel he can.

Loras and Renly wander by to check on them as well, grinning and winking at Jaime. 

He isn’t sure what they think is going on here, because there’s no way Brienne sees him as anything other than her sad, pathetic, lonely friend.

Renly whisks away their plates and Loras replaces them with plates of pie that Jaime can now recognize as Gilly’s handiwork. 

Margaery, he notices, has switched from spying on them to stalking Sansa like a ruffled hen. Sansa, who is trying to pull Clegane into socializing, seems to have no clue why.

Someone keeps refilling their wine – Loras, he thinks - and Jaime is pleasantly buzzed by the time people start to clear out, so when Brienne starts to pull away, he reels her back in.

“Don’t abandon me,” he begs, pouting at her.

Brienne rolls her eyes, but gives in. Everything is still going on around them, including two men now dressed in sequined gowns starting to sing Dolly Parton songs, but it seems pleasantly distant as Brienne tucks her feet up on the cushions. Her knees rest against his thigh, two points of warmth. Jaime wraps his arm around her, feeling the solid heat of her body. His hand curls around her hip, and he memorizes the feel of it beneath his palm.

Someone is belting “Jolene” out in the background.

Sansa has cornered Margaery in the kitchen, looking angry, when Brienne lets her head drop onto Jaime’s shoulder.

Jaime’s breath catches in his throat. She doesn’t usually touch him – not like this, and he wants to freeze this moment and keep it forever. Her hair smells like it usually does, tropical and fresh, where it brushes against his neck. 

Jaime is wondering what she would do if he turned his head and kissed the top of hers, if she’d punch him or shove him away in disgust, when the argument in the kitchen boils over and Margaery grabs Sansa’s face in her hands before planting a sloppy kiss right on the redhead’s lips.

At least somebody is getting kissed tonight.

Brienne makes a shocked noise, her eyes wide and surprised. Jaime doesn’t know how she’s missed what’s been going on in front of her for months, the way the Tyrell girl is hopelessly besotted with Sansa, but it makes him laugh until he almost cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Ygritte. Jon will someday learn that Jaime and Ygritte's flirty banter is completely harmless and they have zero desire to sleep with each other. 
> 
> I realize drag queens at a gay men's gathering can fall into the realm of stereotype, however it seems that at queer hosted events drag often just ... spontaneously occurs. 
> 
> And go Margaery! Show Jaime how it's done.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to keep going and do better.

Jaime keeps up with his therapy like he’s promised Brienne. They bring in a new specialist who starts training him on the mechanics of the prosthesis he’s almost healed enough to receive.

He even feels more himself, enough to start teasing Brienne again, losing the pajama pants and watching her blush when she glances over and finds him in all his glory. 

Well, all his glory save for one hand. Jaime even dares answering the door in the nude one day, but while Brienne turns a brilliant shade of fuschia, she simply stares at a spot beyond his shoulder and orders him to put on pants or she’s leaving.

That’s probably for the best, because the tone she uses makes all his blood head south so fast he gets light-headed.

Jaime isn’t sure why he’s bothering with all of this effort at recovery, but Tywin has insisted on the most state-of-the-art, realistic hand that can be made. Presumably because if it’s done well enough, Jaime might be fit for public consumption in limited venues.

Maybe.

The hand will connect to muscles in his arm, he’s told, and so he spends ages learning to isolate specific muscles and contract them in ways that will eventually power the hand. The therapist drills him on how it works, how he can manipulate the device.

Jaime has to admit, it can do a lot of things he’d never expected. He can hold things, move the hand around like it’s almost real. He can pick up a pen or a fork and turn a key in a lock

But he can’t feel, which doesn’t matter for most things but he misses it, misses the sensation of touching anything, feels unbalanced when he’s only getting feedback from one hand where he expects two.

It’s become even more noticeable since the holiday, when his cock decided to rejoin the rest of him in the land of the living. 

Jaime dreams of Brienne, the feel of her curled up against him feeding his fantasies of what it would be like to be able to touch her as he wants to. He wakes up hard more often than not, and sometimes with embarrassingly sticky sheets, but jerking off with his left hand is frustrating and unfulfilling.

If he can’t even touch himself well, what good would he be to Brienne? How could he bring her pleasure with a clumsy left hand?

A prosthesis would be no help there. Aside from not trusting himself not to hurt her when he can’t feel how hard he’s touching, Jaime can’t imagine that he’d be able to use a false hand to stroke her and be left not knowing what her skin feels like under his fingers or how hot and wet she would be if he could slide them into her. 

Not that he ever will.

It’s torture sometimes, watching her across the street, how unguarded she is with her friends. The more time he spends with her, the more he wants, the more he imagines what it would be like to have Brienne be so free with him. Free and naked, preferably.

Jaime looks over one day to see her demonstrating how to get out of a choke hold with Renly, the lucky bastard, and gets so aroused he has to spend a good part of the afternoon with a pillow planted in his lap.

His pants make a return shortly after, because he’s spending more time trying to hide his boners than he is frankly comfortable with.

It’s really a wonder Brienne hasn’t caught him yet. Or maybe she has, and she’s politely ignoring the issue to let him down gently.

Still, Jaime is thrilled when he finally gets the okay to take his new hand home. It does work, and he’s told it will only get better with time, and regaining even the smallest amount of use of his right hand is something.

It even comes with a flesh colored sleeve that makes it look, from a distance, as if he is whole. 

Brienne indulges Jaime as he shows her all the things he’s learned, picking up pens and forks and whatever else he can find while she watches him with a small smile on her face.

Jaime thinks he’s probably being ridiculous, excited over such trivial things, but she doesn’t say anything and she stays as long as he’s talking.

Stays so late, in fact, that she falls asleep in the chair when he’s in the middle of demonstrating how he can hold a key and unlock a door.

When she sleeps, Brienne looks peaceful, the small lines from her usual frown easing and her full lips falling slack. 

Jaime considers waking her up and sending her home. But he’s a selfish man and he wants nothing more in the world than to have Brienne in his apartment, to know what it’s like to see her as soon as he wakes up. So he scoops her up, holding his breath to see if she’ll wake, and carries her off to his bed.

When he sets her down and sees her laid on his red sheets, Jaime feels a clenching in both his heart and his groin.

A better man, a man with honor, would go sleep in one of the guest bedrooms.

Jaime is not a better man.

He’s tired and he’s lonely and he’s been wanting her for months. Just to lie next to her is more than Jaime expects he’ll ever get a chance to do, and it’s just too tempting.

When Jaime crawls in behind Brienne and wraps an arm around her, she stirs and he’s terrified she’s waking up. But she only cuddles back into his embrace, and Jaime drifts off to sleep.

It’s the first time since the accident that he’s slept without nightmares. 

Jaime wakes up when Brienne starts trying to release herself from his arms. It’s early, the sun is just spilling through the window, and he forgets, for a moment, that this isn’t one of his dreams where Brienne is in his bed, sated and loving him. Where he’s allowed to touch her and adore her.

“It’s too early,” he mumbles, grabbing onto her shirt and burying his face along the back of her neck, warm with sleep and soft as anything. 

Jaime can’t resist the urge to press his hand against her abs, feeling the muscle flexing under his palm while he rubs his chin against her like a cat.

Brienne stills when he says her name and Jaime hopes for a second that she’ll stay.

He wishes she could stay, wishes this were real, and he could roll her over and capture her lips with his, touch her until she’s squirming underneath him, slide into her warmth and stay there. 

But Brienne is slipping out of his grasp and Jaime follows, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and praying she doesn’t notice the tent that’s formed in his pants. 

She’s still rumpled from sleep but looks so delicious, pink and soft and sleepy-eyed. Jaime tries to get her to stay for coffee, for breakfast, for something, but she’s out the door before he can even finish, leaving him standing in his apartment feeling emptier than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime: So soft and so hard.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne inch closer to ... something.

The problem is that once he’s held Brienne in his arms, once he’s touched her, Jaime can’t stop. It’s like a compulsion, the way he reaches for her now when he sees her.

The thing is, Brienne doesn’t stop him. She doesn’t push him away or stop coming over or yell at him.

Brienne lets him throw his arm around her waist, lets him massage her feet while they watch TV, or pull her head onto his lap and run his fingers through her hair. She lets him hug her when she arrives, when she leaves, wrapping his arms around her.

Jaime can’t help the small kernel of hope that takes root in his chest at that, considering that maybe even after his drunken confession, she doesn’t find him completely repulsive.

But she doesn’t take any initiative. Brienne never reaches for him, never cuddles up against him until he tugs her over.

It’s more likely, Jaime knows, that she’s just indulging him because she feels sorry for him. 

Still, his heart leaps when she actually invites him somewhere – okay, it’s to a farmer’s market, which is a thing he’s never ever considered doing, but it’s near her apartment and maybe he’ll finally get a chance to see where she lives.

It doesn’t escape Jaime that Brienne knows all of his darkest secrets and he knows next to nothing about her. 

It’s worth waking up far too early and grabbing her favorite tea drink and his fall coffee – Jaime loves pumpkin spice season and he doesn’t care who knows it – and making his way to the slightly run-down square full of tents.

Grocery shopping isn’t a thing that Jaime does, as a rule, since he can pay others to do it for him, but there is something rather peaceful about the rows of vendors. There are tables full of fresh, gleaming produce, blocks of fragrant cheese, loaves of golden bread. 

Some of it is deeply absurd. There’s no such thing as artisanal water, for one, and the woman selling cheese has wrapped it in plastic wrap, which Jaime finds personally offensive.

“It can’t breathe,” he explains, for what feels like the fifth time.

“Wrapping cheese in plastic keeps it fresh the longest,” the woman is saying, frizzy braids swinging. 

“But it will ruin the flavor,” Jaime argues. “You need cheese paper!”

“Come on, Jaime,” Brienne says, tugging at his elbow. 

“She’s wrong!” 

“I’m sorry,” Brienne says, over her shoulder, as she manhandles him away. “I’ll be back next week.”

“You will not,” Jaime tells her. “You can’t buy cheese from a woman who doesn’t know how to store it!”

“It’s just cheese, it will be fine.” 

“Just cheese!” Jaime gawks. “You know, you really should have a separate refrigerator for your cheeses. They need to be kept warmer, and you don't want them near anything with a strong odor.”

Brienne stares at him. “You have a fridge just for cheese, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Brienne rolls her eyes, but then she’s held hostage by the Mereneese vendor who seems to think that she needs to try every possible combination of flatbread and spread while he flirts outrageously with her.

Brienne, of course, doesn’t seem to notice that the man is about three seconds away from having his sisters strip her naked and assess her suitability for marriage. Jaime pulls her away before the vendor gets any more ideas.

“So,” he says casually, as they’re heading out. “I haven’t seen where you live.”

“Your place is nicer,” Brienne says, but Jaime doubts that.

“Please,” he says, pouting.

She caves.

Brienne’s place is utterly charming. Sure, it’s shockingly small, and the paint is chipping, but there are things everywhere he looks, tiny glimpses into Brienne Tarth.

Okay, so the couch is faded and terribly uncomfortable, but he flops down on it anyway and coaxes her into putting on some horror movie while he darts his eyes around, trying to take it all in.

The tiny kitchen has a beat-up table with a handful of mismatched chairs. Boxes of tea litter the counter, next to a battered kettle. 

The wench shut the bedroom door before he could get a glimpse, sadly, but the short hallway is lined with photos of a beach and a man that Jaime thinks must be Brienne’s father, based on age and height.

When they stop to order food, Jaime goes to examine the shelves along one wall. Lots of books, mostly novels and history; he sees several of the same ones he’d borrowed from Tyrion, but so much else as well.

Old sports trophies, sea shells, more photos.

“Is that you?” he says incredulously, picking up a frame with two gawky teenagers that could only be Brienne and Renly, wearing tank tops and tiny shorts, medals on their necks, grinning broadly.

“Put that away,” Brienne insists.

“But it’s so cute. Do you still have those shorts? You should wear those shorts.”

“No!” she says, looking scandalized.

Jaime wonders how scandalized she’d look if she knew what he was thinking about those shorts, and how much fun it would be to watch her run in them and then peel them off after. 

Brienne looks like she’s about to throw him out though, so Jaime puts the picture down and turns his attention to a display of miniature animals carved out of stone, arranging them as if they’re on parade.

“I’m cold,” he pouts later, the pizza cleared away.

He isn’t, but the pink (pink!) lacey blanket on the couch isn’t big enough for both of them unless they squeeze in close, which Brienne does with a sigh.

It’s so nice, the stupidly uncomfortable couch, the slightly scratchy blanket, the comforting weight of Brienne on his side, that he falls asleep despite himself.

Jaime wakes up hours later — he isn’t sure when — biting back a scream as the images of the Bloody Mummers fade from his mind, phantom pain shooting down where his hand should be. They were there again, beating him, but not just him. Brienne was on the floor too, in the dream, screaming as they clawed and kicked at her. 

It takes him a few minutes to get his bearings, the light and colors all wrong. Brienne, he remembers, and stumbles to his feet and down the hall, suddenly needing to see her and make sure this is real, she’s alive, she’s not dead on his floor.

She’s in her bed, the door cracked open, blond hair barely visible from underneath a quilt that glows faded blue and green in the moonlight.

Jaime only means to go and see that she’s breathing, but then he’s close to the bed and the desire to touch and hold her takes over. He slips into the bed, on the crisp white sheets that smell faintly of lavender and wraps his arms around Brienne. 

It feels so good and right to have her in his arms, and once again his sleep is dreamless. 

Jaime wakes up slowly, awareness settling on him as he realizes he’s wrapped around Brienne, their legs tangled in each other, his arm around her thick waist. He should be apologizing, he should be moving away, but she’s giving him a look that’s almost tender, almost wanting. Jaime lets himself imagine, for a minute, that she wants him as much as he wants her.

The moment stretches between them like strands of honey, her eyes open and trusting as they stare into his. Jaime can feel every place they’re touching, acutely aware of the warmth of her body and the way her breathing speeds up just slightly.

Maybe she does want him, Jaime thinks, as Brienne’s eyes darken and her lips part slightly.

But then she’s frowning and he asks what’s wrong before he can resist, as if he hasn’t crawled into her bed while she’s sleeping. 

She shivers when he speaks, her pupils get darker still, and Jaime starts to believe that what he’s seeing in her eyes is desire. Even now, after she’s seen his very worst. He searches her face, looking for revulsion or distaste, but Brienne is open and unguarded like this, still soft from sleep, and she’s looking at him like he’s always dreamed.

Jaime’s pushing himself closer, covering her body with his before he can think twice, watching her teeth nibble her lower lip. Brienne lets him, even though she’s strong enough to push him away with ease. Jaime forces himself to go slowly, to give her every opportunity to say no and push him away.

She doesn’t. 

_I’m going to kiss her_ , Jaime thinks, _finally_ , and he brings his hand up to cup her face — 

Only he hasn’t got a hand, and instead of a gentle touch, it’s his ugly, scarred stump reaching up to caress her cheek and it touches skin before he can pull away. 

Jaime almost trips over his feet, jumping out of the bed before he has to see the look of horror in her eyes at his broken, deformed body, and he barely has the presence of mind to grab his shoes and his hand before he’s out the door, breathing heavily like he’s run ten miles.

Jaime won’t let himself look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheese fridges are not real, but I think they should be. The notes on cheese storage are real, and while cheese caves exist for people making cheese, storing it separately is not yet a thing. But I needed something pretentious for Jaime to do. And also, really, I want a separate mini fridge for cheese now.
> 
> The Mereen wedding customs are taken from a Wiki of Ice and Fire.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime doesn't get a chance to try to fix things with Brienne before another crisis lands in his lap.

Jaime doesn’t get a chance to wallow in his self-pity, as it turns out, or to call Brienne and try to give her some kind of apology or explanation, because Tyrion’s waiting for him when he gets home.

“I can’t,” Jaime says. “I screwed up with Brienne, I … I have to figure out how to fix this.”

“Not now,” Tyrion says.

“Yes now,” Jaime answers.

“No.” Tyrion fixes him with a stare. “Not now. You need to come with me.”

“Tyrion –” 

“Now.”

Tyrion doesn’t speak again until they’re in the car pulling away. “What the hell is going on?” Jaime demands.

“Robert’s dead.”

Considering how much his brother-in-law drinks and the generally stupid things he does after, Jaime doesn’t find that terribly shocking. “Okay?”

“They’ve arrested Cersei. And Joffrey.”

The drive to the Rock takes longer than usual, or at least that’s how it seems given the lack of information. Jaime can’t imagine what’s happened if Tywin can’t manage to keep the police at bay.

“What about the kids?” he asks, thinking of Myrcella and Tommen.

Tyrion shrugs.

They’re almost to the house when Tyrion gets another call, then he leans forward and has a whispered conversation with Bronn, who turns the car and begins heading in a new direction.

A few moments later, they pull up at Cersei and Robert’s estate.

There are remarkably few police cars present: a few squad cars plus an assortment of low-end, nondescript vehicles that can only belong to government employees.

Tywin is standing in the foyer, looking sour, flanked by detectives. 

“The kids?” Jaime asks.

“They’re in with social workers now,” says one of the detectives. 

“What happened?” Jaime asks. 

“We were hoping to talk to you about that,” says the other detective, looking angry.

Jaime spends the next hour in a room with him, going over everything. He hasn’t spoken to Cersei since before his accident. He doesn’t talk to the kids regularly. He doesn’t talk to Robert regularly. No, she’s never mentioned anything violent.

Jaime doesn’t talk about his attack.

When he emerges, Renly is there with the other Baratheon brother – Stannis? – who looks exceptionally pinched in the face. Renly just looks exhausted. 

“What happened?” he asks, because the police haven’t given him any more information.

“Robert was shot,” Renly says, ignoring the glare Stannis levels his way. “He was on a hunting trip. With Joffrey.”

“With _Joffrey_?” 

Renly nods.

Anyone stupid enough to give Joffrey a gun probably deserves to be shot, Jaime thinks, and he doesn’t think that Robert was particularly close with any of his children.

“His will is missing,” Stannis says stiffly. “Do you know about that?”

“How would I know?” Jaime snaps.

“Well, you –” Stannis starts, but Renly cuts him off.

“Don’t, Stannis. He’s fine.”

Stannis glowers.

“It’s a fucking nightmare,” Renly says, going over to Robert’s bar to rummage for a bottle of whisky. “They say Cersei’s behind it.”

“That’s not ours,” Stannis starts, as Renly begins pouring glasses.

“Who’s going to care? Tommen?” Renly asks his brother.

They sip slowly. 

“I believe it,” Jaime says, about Cersei. 

Stannis looks surprised. 

“His will should be in the safe,” Stannis says. “Only he and Cersei would have access. I can only get in with the family lawyer’s permission.” 

“Could he have stored it somewhere else?”

“No.” Stannis looks at Jaime, hard. “Why would Cersei want his will gone?” 

‘How the fuck should I know?” Jaime says, annoyed that he’s being accused. “I haven’t talked to her in months.”

This morning Jaime was in bed with Brienne, about to kiss her. 

Now he’s trapped in this nightmare. 

It’s another hour before Tyrion and Twyin re-emerge. Tyrion looks as exhausted as Jaime feels. Tywin looks unmoved. 

They’re followed by a mousy-looking woman clutching a sheaf of papers, who looks at the five men in front of her. 

“We need to talk about the children.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While Brienne is thinking Jaime's avoiding her, it's not actually the case at all. But she won't put that together until later.
> 
> Stannis has seen the gossip columns in the tabloids with the rumors about Jaime and Cersei and he's already suspicious. It hasn't made legitimate press, because there's no proof — but for unscrupulous publications who don't care about that, Tywin's had a rough time keeping the rumors entirely under wraps.


	30. Chapter Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime, Tyrion, Stannis, and Renly try to figure out what to do about Tommen and Myrcella.

With no will from Robert and Cersei under arrest and locked in a mental institution, the choices are giving Myrcella and Tommen to a family member’s care or putting them in the foster care system.

Ideally, the social worker says, the closest family member would take them.

Except that there is no closest family member, because Cersei didn’t let any of them speak to her children more than was necessary to keep up appearances at family gatherings. 

The only thing that most of them can agree on is that Tywin should absolutely not get custody, a fact which makes him simmer with rage he can’t show while strangers are present.

It’s decided that they will all stay at Casterly Rock while it gets sorted out, where there are guest rooms for the children and the Baratheons, and the caseworker helps the kids pack a bag with the things they want to bring the most.

They won’t be able to come back, they’re told, because the house is a crime scene due to Cerei’s possible involvement. 

Tywin rants for twenty minutes about how this is absurd, they are family, but the mousy-looking worker actually has a spine despite all outward appearances, and tells him that even family has to be approved in cases with criminal involvement.

Jaime is ashamed to realize how little he knows about his niece and nephew. Tommen is six and Myrcella ten, that’s about it. Breakfast the next day is incredibly awkward, with both children sitting quietly and not wanting to engage in conversation with any of the men at the table, who are virtual strangers to them. They’re polite, but distant, especially around Renly and Tyrion. 

Jaime suspects that Cersei has had all manner of unkind things to say about those two especially.

Speaking with the caseworker is excruciating. Jaime knows nothing about children, knows nothing about these children in particular. He’d given up on the idea of having a family when Cersei refused to run away with him, and hasn’t let himself consider the concept beyond that. He is not at all prepared for any of the questions that get thrown at him.

At least they don’t seem to care about the hand.

Jaime sits with Renly and Tyrion later, on one of the patios that looks out onto the ocean.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he says.

“Me either,” Tryion agrees. “But we can’t let Tywin have them.”

“Or Stannis,” Renly says. “He has a daughter and Shireen is great, but he’s still Stannis.”

“What does that mean?” The man in question asks, walking out to join them.

“It means you’ve got a giant stick up your ass,” Renly says, seeming entirely unconcerned with having been overheard.

“I’m responsible.” Stannis takes a seat. “But I’m not sure that I’m ready to raise more children, especially without a wife.”

Jaime realizes that Cersei and Robert had been married for twenty years, but this is the first time he’s ever been in a room with these men.

“What if we shared?” Renly says thoughtfully. “For a while.”

“We can’t do that,” Stannis says. “They’re not _toys_ , they’re people.”

“I know,” Renly says. “But it could buy us some time. If they rotated houses.”

“Children need stability.”

But Tyrion’s leaning forward. “What do you mean?”

“They don’t know any of us,” Renly says. “What if we took turns. For a while, not forever, Stannis. But let them get to know us. And let us get to learn how to do … this.” 

“And give each of us a break,” Tyrion says. 

“They’ll never agree to it,” Stannis says.

Jaime grins. “There are times when money comes in handy.”

It’s a relief to have some kind of plan, and the Baratheon brothers are starting to hash out the details when Tyrion pulls Jaime aside.

"Brienne called," he says.

Jaime's heart soars. 

"Why didn't she call you?" Tyrion demands. "What did you do?"

"Something stupid," he says and then Renly interrupts to tell them that Jaime will be the one who has the kids first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stannis is uptight, but he makes some valid points. This would probably not fly with actual social workers, but I'm just going to assume a generous grant from the Lannister Corporation made things possible that wouldn't usually.


	31. Chapter Thirty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to learn how to care for children.

Jaime has no idea what to do with two young children. 

Neither has much stuff with them – the police weren't joking about not being allowed to go back and pack. When Jaime asks if there's anything they miss, anything he can try to get them, both kids just shrug.

"Is Joffrey coming here too?" Myrcella asks, looking around Jaime's apartment.

"No," he tells her.

"Good." Myrcella grabs Tommen's hand. "Where are we allowed to go?"

Jaime blinks at her. 

"Anywhere," he says. "This is our apartment, when you’re here. Not just mine."

"But where can we play?" Myrcella asks, looking confused.

"Anywhere," Jaime says again, remembering his own childhood being sequestered in a few rooms, lest they mess up the house. They had a lavish playroom, richly appointed with expensive toys, but punishment was swift and severe if they dared leave a trace of their presence anywhere else.

Jaime had hoped Cersei would do better with her own children, but apparently not.

It doesn't take long for Jaime to get both kids set up in the two guest rooms. They only have a few pieces of clothing and not much else, although Myrcella has brought the book she's currently reading.

Jaime calls Pia to ask about ordering clothes — he isn't sure what kids wear, exactly, but someone probably knows?

Pia is not impressed.

"So," Jaime says awkwardly, sitting in the living room with the children. "I know this is strange for you, but this is your home too, when you're here."

Myrcella doesn't look like she believes him. Tommen is gazing out the window, drumming his heels on his chair.

"Uncle Renly!" Tommen says, jumping up and pressing his face to the window.

The pervy lunch group. Thank the gods, because Jaime is running out of ideas for things to say. Renly, from the way he sits while Loras pets him sympathetically, doesn't seem to be doing any better at dealing with this disaster.

Jaime doesn't know what he's supposed to do with kids. He's also more than a little unnerved by how much Myrcella and Tommen look like he and Cersei did as children. 

The thing is, there was a time when they had a normal sibling relationship. Jaime remembers how much they'd run and play, how they'd keep each other entertained during endless family functions where they were expected to sit quietly with the grown-ups. They would come up with small puzzles or invent stories by whispering back and forth when nobody was looking.

That was before things became unnatural and twisted, though of course he never would have called it that at the time. 

Jaime wonders if it would have happened if they hadn't been so isolated. 

Jaime wonders how isolated Tommen and Myrcella have been.

There's a flurry of activity in Brienne's office later in the day, but he's not really paying attention to it while trying to figure out how to speak with his niece and nephew. Both are clearly bored, but Jaime hasn’t got much to do. He grabs some blank paper and some pencils, which at least amuses them to some extent, though Tommen struggles to grip his pencil. Myrcella says it’s because it’s too small, he needs crayons.

Jaime does not have crayons.

Worrying about the kids is a lot of work, and Jaime loses track of time. He's surprised when he hears Brienne's knock at the door.

Jaime's so glad to see Brienne's face, her gorgeous eyes and her ridiculous nose, and he wants nothing more than to invite her in and apologize for his mistake. To fall to his knees and grovel for forgiveness.

But things are already confusing enough for Myrcella and Tommen. He can't add another new person to the mix right now. Even though saying Brienne can't come in hurts every fiber of his being.

Of course she's not surprised, Renly has updated her. Jaime figured he would. But she's brought things for the kids. On behalf of Sansa, she says, and the hope Jaime’s feeling dies swiftly. He wonders if that’s her way of pulling away from their friendship.

He's reminded her how broken and useless he is. She deserves better, Jaime reminds himself, but he can't help the joy that sparks in him when she suggests a favorite movie of hers.

He puts it in immediately, coaxing both kids to get on the couch with him. Tommen has already claimed a stuffed cat from the box and cuddles it while Myrcella pokes at various toys, looking tentatively interested.

"What's this about?" Tommen asks, looking at the DVD case.

"I don't know," Jaime says. 

"Who gave it to you?" Myrcella asks.

"My friend Brienne."

Myrcella wrinkles her nose. "I don't remember a cousin Brienne."

"She's not our cousin," Jaime says absently, as the movie opens with a school of whales splashing in the ocean.

Of course Brienne would love a movie that features the ocean. She is from an island. 

"But we're not supposed to have friends that aren't Lannisters," Myrcella says, sounding confused. "Or Baratheons."

Jaime sighs. This is going to be harder than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pia is like how do you function in the real world, boss?
> 
> I know very little about the finer points of child development at various ages, so hopefully I'm hitting somewhere in the ballpark. Though I do imagine with all the trauma, Myrcella is probably a bit more grown up from trying to protect herself and her little brother, and Tommen might be a little more babyish, if it gets him out of the criticism from his parents or torment from Joffrey. I don't imagine either of them got a lot of adult attention, certainly not of the positive variety. 
> 
> Cersei is emulating Tywin in many ways, which is of course devastating to Jaime, who is trying very hard NOT to be like that.


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime tries to balance all the issues in his life.

"I don't understand. We were miserable," Jaime says to Tyrion a few days later, while the kids are in their rooms doing whatever it is they do. They still don't quite believe they're allowed to play anywhere they want to, and spend a lot of time in the bedrooms. Separately, much to Jaime’s relief. "Why would she do the same thing to her kids?"

"Because she's Cersei?" Tyrion says. 

"They haven't even asked about her," Jaime says. Which worries him. Cersei is awful, but she's their mother, shouldn't they miss her? Especially Tommen. Myrcella is getting old enough to start to understand things, but Tommen is so young.

"You know," Tyrion says, with studied casualness. "Tommen looks a lot like you."

"Yeah."

"No," Tyrion says again. "Tommen looks a lot like you."

"I know," Jaime says, annoyed. 

Tyrion stares at him.

"Cersei and I are twins," Jaime reminds him.

"Yes but I mean – have you considered," Tyrion starts. "I’m just saying, they don't look at all like Robert."

"No," Jaime says automatically. "He can't be."

Tyrion raises an eyebrow.

"I mean. We were careful," Jaime says, although thinking back they often weren't. "She wouldn't – she'd have said?"

"Would she?"

Probably not, Jaime has to admit. If Cersei had told him about a pregnancy, Jaime honestly can’t say if he would have wanted her to end it or wanted to be a part of the child’s life, but certainly he wouldn’t have been okay with letting them be raised by Robert. Another black mark on his soul, then, if any of them are his children. 

"I suppose it's possible they're Robert's," Tyrion says, watching him. "We don't know for sure, but–"

"It would explain why she took the will," Jaime says, finishing the thought. Because if it was a standard will, if Robert hadn't known about Cersei's affairs or had any doubts about his children, there would be no reason to hide it. Cersei would have inherited everything, apart from some trusts for the kids, most likely.

"Or why she killed him," Tyrion says.

"Joffrey killed him."

"Do you really think Joffrey does anything without her backing? He's still a child."

He's a monster, is what he is, but he is the apple of Cersei's eye. Jaime doubts that she could have been unaware of Joffrey's plans. Even if she didn’t inspire them.

"On a happier note," Tyrion says. "What happened with Brienne?"

"That's not happier," says Jaime before telling him.

When he stops, he stares mournfully at the table.

"You fucking idiot," Tyrion says.

"What?" Jaime is really starting to get tired of being told he’s stupid. Even if it’s true.

"You do realize she probably thinks that was about her?" 

"What?"

"I realize that you're somewhat blinded with your affection," Tyrion tells him. "But you must know that she doesn't think she's attractive."

"She's wrong," Jaime says.

"Fine, but that doesn't change it." Tyrion sighs. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but frankly, you need help. Shae says Brienne is very insecure. Her friends have tried to talk to her, because they see how ridiculous you are as much as I do. She really doesn't believe that you would be interested."

"I flirt with her constantly!" Jaime says.

"To be fair, you're very bad at flirting."

"I'm not. But we also spend all the time together. I've crawled into _bed_ with her."

"Which is a little bit creepy, you know," Tyrion says. "But setting that aside, no, Jaime, she doesn't know. She thinks you'd never look at her."

Jaime blinks at his brother.

"But she's Brienne."

"Yes, yes she is." Tyrion says. "And from what Shae says, she's not -– look, I don't know how much she knows about your past—"

"Everything," Jaime says.

"Everything?"

Jaime nods.

"Well that is unexpected," Tyrion says, after a long pause. "You really do like her, don't you?"

"She's amazing," Jaime says.

"From what Shae says, Brienne doesn't think anyone could ever want her. Because of how she looks."

Jaime thinks about Brienne's long legs and astonishing eyes and how she lights up when she smiles. "I've wanted her since the minute I saw her."

“But she doesn’t know that,” Tyrion says. “Brienne thinks she’s going to be alone forever, and she’s accepted it.”

Tyrion must be exaggerating. Brienne is insecure, but she can’t be that blind. Jaime’s all but waved a giant flag declaring his interest.

“That’s absurd,” Jaime says. “She’s a wonderful person.”

"Fine, Jaime, but you're going to have to tell her that. Directly. Specifically. She's not going to pick up on hints."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion "Do I Have To Do Everything In This Family?" Lannister, everyone.


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime finally uses his words. The non-insulting ones.

Jaime is pretty certain that if Brienne thinks his flirting is a joke, then she'll definitely be suspicious if he texts to ask her to come over and _oh, by the way, I'm hopelessly attracted to you_.

He finally gets an idea when he realizes that Warrior's Day is approaching. There's a parade, and if he remembers correctly, it's not far from where Brienne lives.

Jaime fully expects Brienne to tell him to never contact her again, but she meets him outside, looking at him warily.

Jaime lets the kids distract him for a bit, chattering excitedly and Tommen begging to be allowed to sit on Brienne's shoulder to see better. But he can't avoid this conversation forever, and he sends them off to look at the cheap plastic crap the cart vendors are selling.

"So," he says, deciding to just dive right in. "I'm sorry." 

"It's fine," she says, not looking at him.

"I can explain," he tries.

"I'm used to it," she says, and he stares harder at his coffee cup. Of course she's seen him without his hand before, but he knows that’s not the same as touching it.

"I know it's unsightly," Jaime says, trying not to wince. "I didn't realize I had taken my hand off when I touched you."

When he glances her way, Brienne’s brow is furrowed in confusion.

"I thought it was me," she says. 

Jaime feels like the ground drops out from under him, and he stares at her.

"What?"

Now she's not looking. "That you thought I was – someone else."

Cersei? She thought he thought she was Cersei? The two couldn't be less alike if they tried.

And he'd never willingly get into bed with Cersei now.

"And then you saw me, and well." She gestures at herself with a look of resignation.

Maybe Tyrion was right after all. 

"I knew who you were," he says.

"I know my face is," she starts, pausing. 

"There's nothing wrong with your face," Jaime says. He steps closer to her, casting his eyes over her pale skin and mass of freckles. He loves her face. He'd love nothing more than to wake up and see her face next to his every day.

"Brienne," he finally says, because she's still not looking at him. "Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?"

Her voice sounds so hesitant when she says yes.

Jaime remembers what Tyrion had said, about what she thinks.

"As a date," he clarifies, to make sure there's no way she can misunderstand him. 

She's blushing again, but she still says yes, even knowing that's his intention. Jaime wants nothing more than to grab her and kiss her until she can't think, until any doubts she has about her own attractiveness are gone, but now is not the time or the place.

Especially not when the kids come running back, faces bright and begging for souvenirs.

Jaime feels like he's walking on air for the rest of the day, especially when Brienne lets him hold her hand. Which is such a stupidly simple thing, but one he could never have dared do with Cersei. Even familial displays of affection had made her paranoid about being caught. Something clearly romantic was so far out of bounds, he'd never have dared try.

Jaime is somehow unsurprised to see Sansa and Margaery standing on his doorstep one morning, not long after. 

"You have a date with Brienne," Sansa says.

It sends a small thrill through Jaime that she's told her friends.

"Yes."

"Is it a joke?" Margaery crowds him backwards, inside.

"No!"

"Is it a bet?" Sansa asks.

"Of course not!"

"And it's not just some fling?" Margaery says. "You're not going to get bored?"

"Not just doing it to see if you can?" Sansa adds.

"I've been trying to get her to go out with me since we met," Jaime says, exasperated. "Does that sound like I'm going to be bored to you?"

The two women exchange a look. 

"Don't take her anywhere too fancy," Margaery says, apparently satisfied. "She'll get nervous."

"And no flowers," Sansa says. "She hates them."

Jaime thought women were supposed to love flowers, but then he supposes Brienne isn't most women. 

Thank the gods.

"Any other advice?"

"Brienne has been through a lot," Sansa says. Her voice hitches and her girlfriend starts rubbing her back. "When that happens, it's not easy to trust people. You need to be patient with her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY JAIME. Tyrion was going to murder him if he didn't do this soon. And it only takes starting to talk for Jaime to realize his brother might actually be right.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne finally have a date.

Jaime assumes, probably naively, that the date will be no big deal. They've had dinner countless times. It's just that this time they'll be going out, instead of crashing on someone's sofa, and it's deliberate, and he'll hopefully get to kiss her at the end.

Jaime would like to do more than kiss her at the end, but he remembers Sansa's words and Brienne's lack of experience and isn't going to push it.

Except the first part of the date goes terribly. Brienne looks amazing, she's got on a shirt that's the perfect shade of blue, and someone (he suspects Margaery) has talked her into light makeup that makes her eyes look even more luminous and her lips a delectable shade of pink.

Except Brienne can hardly look at him. The Dornish food sits like a weight in his stomach as Jaime tries to get her to talk, and she's as skittish as she was the first few times at the gym.

Worse, even, because then she'd seemed annoyed rather than wishing she were somewhere else.

Jaime's about to give up and accept that she only said yes to this out of pity on a poor cripple, when he finally gets some longer answers and realizes that she's just as nervous as he is.

Ditching the restaurant is the best idea he's ever had, he thinks, as they finally walk through a park. It's one he's never been to before, and Brienne is actually opening up, telling him about her brother.

Jaime doesn't know what he'd have done if he lost Tyrion or Cersei as a child. 

"Let's swing," he says, impulsively, when he spots a play set. He needs something to bring the mood up, and Brienne looks like she's already berating herself for saying something sad.

"We can't," Brienne says.

"Of course we can!" Jaime hops on a swing and rattles the chain of the one next to it. 

"We're too big," she protests.

"We are not," Jaime says. "Come on."

"If it breaks, I’m blaming you," she says. 

That's the Brienne he knows. 

"It makes you feel free, doesn't it?" he shouts as he swings.

"It makes me feel ridiculous," but she's laughing all the same.

"You wanted to be a knight as a kid," he says. "What do you think you would have liked best?"

Brienne actually thinks about it before answering. "Being able to help people that couldn't defend themselves," she says, finally.

That's so Brienne it almost hurts.

"I just wanted to play with swords," Jaime admits.

"Well that too," the wench says, laughing. "I think I'd have been quite good with a sword."

"You'd have been amazing," Jaime says fervently.

He can imagine Brienne in a suit of armor, swinging a longsword. She'd be absolutely terrifying and he'd love to see it.

Jaime should probably stop imagining it, because his thoughts are heading a direction that is extremely inappropriate for a public setting.

When her stomach lets out a growling noise, Jaime's surprised, until he remembers that she'd barely taken five bites of her food at the restaurant. But surely there must be something to eat around, and he can't be the kind of guy who doesn't feed his date, so Jaime leads them on a search for sustenance.

If he compares it to two knights on a journey, well, who can blame him?

Sustenance turns out to be a cart on the street, about which Jaime has very significant hygiene concerns, but it provides piping hot, slightly sweet corn pancakes stuffed with flavorful pork and mild cheese. 

Jaime has to stop himself from following Brienne into her apartment, largely because he's afraid he wouldn't be able to make himself leave.

She says yes when he asks to kiss her, and it takes a significant amount of restraint to keep it soft and chaste. Considering how nervous she was at the beginning of the night, how unsure, he doesn't want to scare her.

He has to go up to his tiptoes to reach, and he can't quite stop at one kiss, but she's smiling instead of looking terrified when he pulls back. 

Jaime considers that a win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern Jaime is somewhat inspired by NCW and thus a big goofball. Hot, horny, and ridiculous, how may I place an order??? I Need One. 
> 
> Ahem.
> 
> The food is pupusas. Pupusas are great and if you have a Salvadoran restaurant anywhere near you, you should go get some. And think of me, because the nearest Salvadoran place is like two hours away from me and I have a sad lack of pupusas in my life.


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne get to know each other better.

Since getting Brienne out of the restaurant seemed to make her less nervous, Jaime figures a trail run would be a good plan for a second date.

It is, and not just because he gets to see her in running tights, but he's vastly underestimated how out of shape he's gotten. By the time they reach the bay, Jaime's barely keeping himself upright and trying to hide how out of breath he is.

It doesn't stop him from grinning like an idiot when he takes Brienne's hand as they walk along the shore. Thankfully, she looks just as happy.

Jaime still looks over his shoulder first, forgetting for a moment that nobody cares if he holds her hand in public. They could do anything in public and nobody would care because they're not related.

Well, maybe not anything. There are public decency laws after all.

Kissing Brienne goodbye still feels like freedom.

They go to the Age of Heroes exhibit at the Red Keep Museum and Jaime can't stop putting his arm around her while they stroll the sword exhibit.

The wench makes eyes at some of the gift shop items before they leave, but only buys a small magnet after carefully mulling her budget.

It's adorable, and Jaime manages to sneak back in and pick up the Oathkeeper pin she had been eyeing covetously while pretending not to. It's real gold and gems, and definitely not cheap, but he figures he can keep it until the Long Night.

He'd give it to her now, but there's no way she'd accept something so expensive for no reason.

Jaime can’t stop himself from deepening the kiss he gives Brienne when he brings her back to her apartment. Brienne’s mouth is soft and sweet, her thick lips parting easily when he slides his tongue against them. Brienne is gripping his shoulders so tight Jaime thinks he’ll have bruises, and it takes an enormous amount of self-control to keep his hands (real and otherwise) on her hips.

Jaime fails at that self-control almost entirely when he takes Brienne out on one of the family’s smaller yachts. It’s hysterical that she doesn’t know how to sail, despite growing up on an island, but she’s a quick study and they don’t have to go far to get to a quiet cove where Jaime drops anchor and pulls Brienne into a heated kiss.

He can’t keep his hands from roaming over her torso, mapping the muscles he’s been admiring, and Brienne returns the favor, albeit with shyness. He sucks a trail of kisses down her gorgeous neck and encourages her to do the same in return. Jaime can’t help himself from bucking up against her when she finds a spot under his ear that seems to have a direct connection to his cock, and sucks on it until he’s moaning. 

Brienne’s touches are shy and soft, barely brushing against his skin, but they still feel more amazing than he imagined. He loves the look on her face, the way her eyes light up when he shifts and moans at her efforts, like she can’t believe that she’s causing this reaction.

Jaime loves the way she looks and feels underneath him, laid out on the deck of the boat with wide eyes and endless legs. He wishes it were still summer, that she were wearing shorts, but there’s still plenty of fun they can have with their clothes on, and he’s determined to touch Brienne with all the care and desire she doesn’t seem to think she deserves. 

When it comes to the physical aspect of their relationship, Brienne is skittish and shy. It’s understandable, especially given some of the stories she’s shared with him, and he suspects there’s plenty more she’s not saying. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating, even as much as he enjoys it. Jaime dreams of her almost nightly, increasingly erotic and obscene dreams. He finds himself drooling one morning, waking up from a particularly vivid dream where he was curled between her thighs, sucking and licking into her until she lost control and screamed and shook against him. It’s so vivid that he’s reaching for her when he wakes up, only to find his arm stretched across an empty bed and his cock throbbing from arousal. He comes embarrasingly quickly just thinking of Brienne, of that day on the boat, the tiny gasps she made as he scraped his teeth gently along her pulse, the way she’d shifted restlessly against him when he touched her. Jaime can’t help sharing some of his dreams with Brienne, especially after he realizes that for all her blushing and protests, describing the things he wants to do to her will have her whimpering and moaning in his arms. 

He just hopes they’ll soon be a reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horny Jaime is Horny.
> 
> The dream scene is also shamelessly stolen from an episode of Supernatural.


	36. Chapter Thirty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime adjusts more to parenting and things move further with Brienne.

The next week that Jaime has Myrcella and Tommen is one of the longest of Jaime’s life. At least that’s what it feels like.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy it. Both kids are finally loosening up around their uncles and he’s beginning to learn more about them. Jaime has no idea how Tommen has remained so sweet after living with his parents and brother, especially when he casually drops comments about the times Joffrey hurt him or Cersei forgot him. 

Somehow he’s still the sweetest child, who loves to draw and loves animals. Jaime quickly learns that walking anywhere takes three times as long with Tommen, because he has to stop and pet every dog and stray cat they run across. 

Myrcella is ridiculously smart, and she loves science and math. Jaime has no idea where she inherited that from, but she’s constantly trying to figure out how things work. One day he walked into her room unexpectedly and found her with a mostly disassembled clock from somewhere – an antique, judging by the gears – and once they worked through her panic and fear at being caught, he was amazed to find how adept she is at taking things apart and putting them back together.

Jaime did have to create a rule about not touching the coffee machine, though, after waking up one morning cranky and sexually frustrated, only to find it in pieces and unable to deliver the life-giving caffeine he craved.

The problem is that with the children around, he doesn’t see Brienne. He would love to introduce them, but it’s so early in their relationship. Jaime has zero intention of letting Brienne go, and it doesn’t seem like she’s interested in doing so either, but there’s only so many new things he wants to throw in Myrcella and Tommen’s life at once.

When the kids go off to Tyrion’s and Brienne is finally able to come over, it’s like a dam breaking. Jaime thinks he should probably be embarrassed about coming in his pants like a green boy, but he can’t bring himself to care since it also means he’s gotten his mouth on Brienne’s bare skin and seen what she looks like falling apart for him.

Thankfully Brienne seems to feel similarly, because their dates take a definite turn towards private settings. Nothing has been as intense as that first day on the couch, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t amazing.

“Gods, you feel so good,” Jaime groans as Brienne runs her hands over his chest. He’s pulled her into his lap over her protests that she’s too heavy and the feel of her weight pressing him down onto the couch is absolutely perfect.

Jaime wishes he still had two hands, because one isn’t enough to be all the places he wants to be. Brienne’s shirt has already been tossed away somewhere and he’s scraping his teeth over her collarbone and running one finger along the edge of her bra.

It’s fancier than before, blue and lacy, which makes him suspect Margaery and Sansa have taken her shopping. He doesn’t really care what it looks like though, as long as he gets it off her as soon as possible. 

Brienne runs her thumb over his nipple and Jaime jolts with the sensation. 

“Not playing fair,” he growls, latching onto her breast. He can feel her nipple hardening even through the fabric and Brienne whines in protest when he lets go.

Jaime loves the little sounds she makes, the feel of her soft skin, the way she flushes so red, starting in her face and traveling down, a glorious map for him to follow.

He’s just about managing to get the damn bra undone when Brienne shifts against him, her leg rubbing up against his cock, and he groans at the friction, thrusting his hips up.

That’s when Brienne pulls back, almost falling off his lap. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for her shirt, looking down.

Jaime closes his eyes briefly and reminds himself that he needs to be patient.

“It’s all right,” he says, when he’s taken several deep breaths. 

He does mean it when he says she can stop any time, even if he feels like he might die from wanting her.

“I know it’s …” she trails off, staring at the bulge in his pants. “I mean, I’ve heard it hurts guys?”

“It does,” Jaime says truthfully. “But it will stop.”

Though the way she’s looking at him isn’t helping. Especially not when she’s chewing on her lower lip in confusion. 

“And you won’t...some guys say they can get injured?” She looks worried, and he’d laugh if he didn’t think it would make her feel humiliated. 

“They were just trying to get you to do something you didn’t want to,” Jaime says. “Trust me, it’ll go down on its own.” Eventually.

“You’re really not mad?” Brienne asks.

“No,” Jaime says.

Brienne curls up next to him and Jaime strokes his hand along her side, feeling the warmth of her skin and the little shivers when he touches her someplace sensitive.

“I”m sorry,” Brienne says.

“Don’t be,” Jaime tells her. “I meant what I said before. It’s only fun if we’re both comfortable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is in a place where she wants, but progress on her insecurities and trust isn't linear, so while the corresponding chapter in Measure in Love is hotter, she also still gets skittish sometimes. And Jaime is trying very, very hard not to be a jerk. Because Cersei is terrible, but Jaime _did_ learn some things from her, like the type of things teenage boys say when they're trying to get girls to do things they aren't comfortable with. And Jaime is a grown-ass adult, he can get some self-control, and he doesn't want to make Brienne feel worse about herself.


	37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime reflects on his past and gets some ... advice?

"Wait," says Tyrion, staring at Jaime. "You're not fucking her?"

"Not yet," Jaime says.

Bronn looks mystified. "I thought you were into her?"

"I am into her." Jaime runs a hand through his hair. "We've done stuff, we just haven't...."

"Fucked," Bronn supplies.

Jaime doesn't know how they got onto this topic of conversation and he is really wishing they hadn't as he weighs Brienne's privacy and his need for advice. Or sympathy.

Or maybe just a cold shower.

"She's a maid," he says, finally.

Tyrion's jaw nearly hits the floor. "I thought you said she was in her thirties."

"She is."

"You having second thoughts?" Tyrion asks. 

"No!" Jaime doesn't care about that. Well. Not in a negative sense. "It's actually kind of hot? In a way. But it's frustrating."

"How on earth is that hot?"

"I dunno," Bronn mulls. "Very conquering hero, first conquest kind of thing. And I bet she's tight."

Jaime resists the urge to hit him, but only just.

"I _like_ her," he says. 

"I couldn't do it." Tyrion shakes his head. "Too much effort, having to work through all the awkwardness and her not knowing what she's doing."

"Charming," Jaime say dryly.

"What? I'm an adult, not a teenager. And what if you date for months only to find out you’re terrible in bed together?" 

"I really don't think that will happen," Jaime says, thinking of the way Brienne had looked when she came, how much he wanted to relive that moment again and again, as often as she’d let him. 

If it’s that good with most of their clothes on, Jaime isn’t sure he’ll survive when they actually do have sex.

"I'd fuck her," Bronn says contemplatively.

Jamie growls. 

Tryion looks like he thinks they’ve both lost their minds. 

“I just worry about fucking it up,” Jaime says, because it’s not like he’s had a great variety of women and Cersei was certainly never shy about taking what she wanted. 

“You are very good at that,” Tyrion agrees.

Jaime tries very hard not to fuck it all up. Even when that means an absurd amount of cold showers. 

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy all the time he spends with Brienne, because he does. Jaime is perfectly happy to spend time together however he’ll get it. He loves talking to Brienne, loves teasing her, loves the way she turns red and glares at him when he’s being especially ridiculous. 

Jaime also loves the way she’s getting more comfortable teasing back, how her eyes light up when she comes up with a particularly witty barb. The way she’ll laugh at him, with her unrestrained laugh and joy on her face, before soothing his bruised ego with sweet kisses and gentle touches.

Jaime would love it more if they were naked, sure, and if he could retaliate against her teasing by throwing her down and seeing how long it would take him to turn her into a writhing, moaning mess on his bed, but that’s not all he wants.

Losing Cersei had hurt, had felt like something being ripped out of his soul, but just the thought of losing Brienne, with her kindness and her acceptance and her shy surprise every time he tells her how much he wants her, feels ten times worse.

Jaime’s not sure he’d survive it if it actually happened.

What gnaws at Jaime the most, though, isn't the physical part of their relationship. It's his growing suspicion that Tyrion was correct and he's not Tommen and Myrcella's uncle, but their father.

They're just so much like him, in looks and in the way he’d been as a child. 

Especially Tommen. Jaime’s memories of childhood are hazy, but he has a dim recollection of the years before his mother died. How much he’d loved snuggling her and how excited he’d been to hear he’d be getting a baby brother or sister. Cersei had no interest in it, but Jaime remembers following his mother around, learning how to take care of a baby so he could help after she gave birth. 

He’d even asked for a baby doll he saw in the store, but Tywin would never allow any son of his to own something so feminine.

It wasn’t until after, later, that he remembers being told that little boys don’t cry, aren’t weak and soft like little girls. (Never mind that Cersei wasn’t weak and soft, not even then.) Remembers the pain of his father’s belt when he dared to play at taking care of Tyrion or pretending to be grown ups with a house, because he’d been the one rocking one of Cersei’s dolls. 

His sister had cut her hair after that, and he’d grown his out as long as his father let him, and they’d swap clothes sometimes. Jaime had loved the chance to play quietly in the gentle company of whatever nanny and he’d have done it far more often. But Cersei didn’t enjoy it as much as Jaime, she only wanted to run along the cliffs at Casterly and climb trees some of the time, and so he’d waited until she said it was okay for them to switch.

The idea of being Tommen’s father scares him, not just because of what it means for them, but because there’s no way he can keep this from Brienne. She already knows about Cersei, but this is worse, and he knows that keeping it secret would be something she’d find unforgivable.

Brienne values honestly, Jaime is learning, considers her word sacred in the ways of chivalry and honor. 

She’s accepted everything Jaime has thrown at her, against all odds, but this isn’t just a past sin. This is constant, living proof of all the ways Jaime is a monster.

There’s nothing Jaime would like more than to pretend he has never considered this idea, just to keep Brienne close, but he can just see how Brienne’s face would look if she found out his suspicions and kept them from her. The disappointment in her eyes, the way she looks when she thinks he’s not being the person he could be.

Jaime’s going to have to tell her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, what Tyrion says is terrible and bullshit, but it's an attitude those of us in Brienne's position have likely run across. And Bronn is completely objectifying, but in that way that I feel is kind of reassuring? In the what you see is what you get sort of way — yes, he's an asshole and he tells you that up front instead of pretending to be a good guy. 
> 
> Jaime and the doll is inspired by William Wants A Doll and in particular, BD Wong's performance of it. Because I have a decent-sized crush on BD Wong. I don't see it as much as gender transgression as Jaime being a very loving person at heart, and wanting a family and to be a good brother and to someday be a good dad. Jaime didn't want to be Cersei sometimes to be a girl, but because Cersei was allowed to be soft and loving and quiet, and Jaime wasn't. Cersei ... well, Cersei might have wanted to be a boy sometimes.


	38. Chapter Thirty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime pines and tries to parent.

Jaime doesn’t know what good he’s done in this life to deserve Brienne, but he’s not going to question it too hard. 

When he tells her about his suspicions regarding Tommen and Myrcella, she doesn’t break up with him or run away. She just keeps coming back, as loving and kind as ever.

Jaime wants to weep with how it makes him feel, when he sees her smiling at him, when she lets him touch her and kiss her, as if he’s not a man tainted with the worst sins. 

She even keeps pushing him to go back to the gym, where he tries to focus on working out and not staring at Brienne’s ass.

Jaime still hasn’t talked her into tiny shorts or yoga pants, but he has convinced her to buy some sweat pants that actually fit — or rather, Sansa convinced her and Jaime whole-heartedly supported the endeavor — and he’s mesmerized by how many muscles Brienne has.

Everyone at the gym finds it hysterical, except for Lyanna Mormont, who sometimes comes along with her uncle, and who gives him a very stern lecture on objectification and the male gaze.

Jaime’s considering asking her if she’d babysit for Myrcella and Tommen because he thinks they’d love her, but he’s afraid that asking will get him a lecture on feminism.

Lyanna’s the only one who seems offended. Although Clegane does corner him one evening while Brienne is teaching her class (he’s still not allowed in) and gives him the shovel talk. 

Jaime hasn’t truly appreciated how tall the man is until that moment.

The thing is, though — for all the teasing and threats, nobody seems to actually think him weak for how he feels. Cersei had used his affections as a weapon, stringing him along and laughing at his desire for her, how it would let her talk him into anything. 

Yet Thoros or Beric will spy him watching Brienne work with the weights or challenge somebody in the gym and simply nudge him and grin about how ridiculous he looks. But it’s not _mean_ ; they don’t suggest that it makes him weak. It feels really good to be back, to feel his body coming back to something approaching his old form. The appreciative looks Brienne gives him don’t hurt either.

Brienne, it turns out, is the main issue with going to the gym. Not that he doesn't enjoy it, but that he enjoys it too much. Jaime spends far too many nights thinking about Brienne’s muscles as she lifts weights when he’s lying in bed stroking his cock.

Or in the shower in the morning. Or in the middle of the day sometimes, when he looks over to see Brienne in her office and she smiles just right or moves in a way that reminds him of how strong she is, and he has to slink off into the bedroom and jerk off just to get some relief.

Jaime’s trying very hard to be respectful, but the memory of Brienne writhing underneath him, the tiny whimpers and moans she made, how he swears he could feel the heat of her even through two pairs of jeans. Jaime would give anything to have that again, 

Tyrion gets so tired of listening to him pine about Brienne and fret about the kids that he starts sending him links to self-help websites and something called Mommy blogs, which are a revelation.

Jaime had no idea there were so many things you were supposed to do with children, or how much information there is out there about how they’re meant to be nurtured and supported.

There are a lot of words Jaime could use to describe his childhood, but nurtured and supported are certainly not among them. He’s enthralled by all the things he finds out, the ideas about how he can take care of Myrcella and Tommen.

He’s never thought much about it before, but Jaime finds he likes the idea of taking care of them, of being the kind of adult he wishes he’d had in his life. 

He’s especially excited to find out there are parents who post ideas for fun outings and things to do, which is how he finds out about a pumpkin farm just outside of King’s Landing. Jaime just about melts over the photos from other families, and immediately goes to the idea of him and Brienne with the kids in matching plaid shirts, looking like the happy families you see in magazines.

It doesn’t quite go as planned, and he can tell Brienne thinks he’s being ridiculous, but Jaime revels in every bit of it.

Jaime gave up the idea of a family and children so long ago he doesn’t even remember. Even if Cersei had run away with him like he’d wanted, he would never have agreed to having children. Or that’s what he’d thought. It’s too risky, too much of a chance for something to go wrong. If what he’s thinking is true, he’s appalled that Cersei allowed it to happen.

But if he loved Cersei, he was willing to give it up, give up being a father and even a husband, just to be near her.

Jaime’d never imagined he could get to have a family. Not kids, whether they’re his niece and nephew or his son and daughter, not a woman he could stand openly with and not worry. Not a woman who is happy to humor him even when she clearly thinks he’s insane.

Jaime’s especially glad when Pia helps him order prints of the photos he’d taken, and he carefully puts them in frames. Myrcella, grinning with a pumpkin almost as big as she is in her arms, Tommen petting a goat, and Brienne, caught unawares as she looks over the field, a small smile on her face, the strong lines of her body in stark relief against the sky.

Jaime lines them up on his dresser where he’s sure to see them every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More schmoop BUT there's smut for tomorrow!
> 
> I'm also pretty sure Jaime starts a mommy blog or IG account. Maybe IG. Blogs took a hit with Google reader. He also has Pinterest filled with ideas. Or the Westerosi equivalent which I named earlier and am too tired to go look up right now.


	39. Chapter Thirty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get steamy between Jaime and Brienne after Crone's Night.

Jaime can’t bring himself to be sad about losing the battle to accompany the kids on Crone’s Night, not after the moment he steals with Brienne and the way it seems to open up to him even more.

She’s a far better treat than he’d ever get going door to door.

Besides, Myrcella and Tommen were delighted to spend time with their cousin, and are in rapturous awe of the girl.

Jaime, meanwhile, is in awe of Brienne. She’s so responsive, when he touches her, still shy but so eager and soft and wonderful under his hands. 

He’s running his hands over her body, wishing desperately that both were real, that he could feel her with both, but there’s no point dwelling on that when Brienne is arching up underneath him, little gasps and whimpers falling from her mouth.

“You look so good like this,” he tells her, feeling her shiver as he lowers his head to suck at her breast. 

Her hands slide over his back, nails digging into the muscle of his shoulder. The pain is just enough to feel good, sending sparks shooting down his spine.

His cock is so hard it hurts and Jaime’s head spins from it all. He wants nothing more than to bury himself inside Brienne and fuck her until they’re both screaming but she’s not ready, and he forces himself to hold back.

Brienne has insisted on keeping their underwear on, which is annoying but also probably a good idea for his self-control.

Jaime runs his hand over her sensible cotton panties, the kind that look more like shorts than underpants, which is somehow entirely fitting for her and also unexpectedly hot.

Brienne is so wet under his fingers, even through the material, so hot and Jaime groans at the thought of how she’d feel around his cock, how good it would be.

Not today, though.

Crone’s Night had been amazing, the way she’d let him touch her, the way she’d touched him, all tentative and shy, but so rushed and he hadn’t been able to _see_ anything.

Now Brienne is spread out on his couch, gods he loves this couch, loves her on it, miles of pale skin for him to touch and taste.

Jaime has to kiss her again, moving up to capture her lips, and Brienne meets him eagerly, sliding one hand into his hair. Jaime wonders if she’ll pull on it if he asks, but then he’s distracted again. 

“Can I touch you more?” he asks, looking down on her.

Brienne’s eyes are hazy as she blinks up at him.

“I need you to tell me,” he says. “I need to know you want this.”

Her body is saying she wants it, the way her hips are jerking up any time he slides his hands close, the way her skin is flushed, gorgeous pink nipples peaked for him. 

But Jaime needs to know that her mind wants it too.

“Yes,” Brienne finally says, not meeting his eyes as a fresh burst of red blooms on her cheeks.

Jaime doesn’t know how she can still be embarrassed, he’s seen her before, she’s seen him before, how much he likes it when she comes, how turned on he gets. 

“Oh good,” he says, kissing her again as he slips his hand under the edge of her panties, feeling how absolutely drenched she is.

Gods she’s so responsive to him. Jaime tries to avoid thinking about Cersei at all times, but especially when he’s in bed (or couch, as it were) with Brienne, but he can’t help thinking that his sister was never like this, never so eager and ready, but always quick to scold him if he didn’t touch her exactly the right way.

Brienne is shy, but open and hungry for him, arching into all of his touches, her sounds and shivers a sign of what she likes more or less, but she never has a harsh word for him.

Jaime wants to keep kissing her, he would kiss Brienne constantly if he could, but he also wants to see what he couldn’t last time, and he tears his lips away to look where his fingers disappear under the waistband of her underwear.

They’re white, and she’s so wet she’s soaked through them, so much Jaime can almost see through the fabric, just a hint of gold curls and pink flesh.

Jaime thrusts against her hip before he can stop himself, the friction so welcome to his aching cock. 

He’s about to apologize, but then Brienne is grabbing his ass and moaning as she pulls him against her, and well, who is Jaime to deny her anything?

Brienne is hot and wet and so unbelievably soft when he slides his fingers inside her. It’s enough to make Jaime whine and rub up against her, especially when he feels how tight she feels around just his fingers.

It would be like heaven around his cock.

Jaime works her gently, sliding his thumb over her clit and listening to her gasps and stifled moans.

“Don’t hold back,” he says against her skin, watching the way his hand his moving against her, her hips chasing his touch. “I like hearing you, I like knowing what I do to you.”

Brienne likes hearing him too, Jaime thinks, as her hips increase their speed when he speaks. 

“Just like that,” he tells her. “I want to make you feel good Brienne, I can make you feel so good.” 

“Jaime,” she manages, and when he looks back to her face, she’s staring at him with wide, brilliant eyes, her lips swollen from kissing, like every dream he’s ever had.

“Come for me,” he begs, looking at her face. “Let go, let me see you, please, Brienne …”

She does, finally, back arching so much she nearly pushes him off the sofa, her walls squeezing his fingers like a vice and it’s so good Jaime nearly comes himself.

He can’t stop himself from licking his fingers when he finally pulls his hand away, the tangy, dark taste of her better than any of his daydreams.

Jaime would curl up and live between her thighs if she’d let him.

Brienne hides her face at that, but then she’s reaching for him, and Jaime shoves his boxers down just enough for his cock to spring free. 

Brienne is curious, wrapping her hand gently around him, biting her lower lip with concentration. It’s absolutely adorable, and for all the heat of the moment, Jaime wants to just fold her in his arms and hold onto her.

Not so much that he’s going to keep her from what she’s doing, though.

“Is this okay?” Brienne asks, glancing up at him. “I don’t know how …”

Anything Brienne does would be okay in Jaime’s book, but he wraps his hand around hers, guiding her, showing her the pressure and speed he likes. 

He tries to stay focused, to be a gentleman about it all, but he can’t think when Brienne has her hand wrapped around his cock like this, warm and solid and almost as big as his. Not when she’s looking at him in amazement like she’s somehow surprised that he’s letting her do this, 

It all dissolves into a haze of sensation and feeling and Jaime knows he’s mumbling something incoherent, staring at Brienne and her beautiful eyes and her hand working on his cock until he comes so hard it hits his chest, and then he’s breathing heavily. 

Brienne is staring curiously at the drops of his come on her hand and oh, that’s an image that’s going to come back to him later, that strange combination of innocence and sex appeal that Brienne embodies so godsdamned well. 

“Sorry,” Jaime mumbles, grabbing his shirt to wipe up the mess and tucking himself back into his shorts before pulling Brienne close to him again. 

“It’s fine,” Brienne says. “I mean, it’s supposed to happen, right?”

Jaime grins into her hair. “I could be more polite about it, warn you.”

“I don’t mind,” Brienne says, before they both start drifting off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing horny, besotted Jaime SO much.


	40. Chapter Forty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After reality intrudes on Jaime and Brienne's happy bubble of bliss, Jaime tries to explain the Lannisters to her.

Jaime is going to kill his father. He’s never really liked the man anyway, so it won’t be a huge loss. 

Brienne is mortified that Tywin’s seen her half-naked, seen her and Jaime being intimate, and she’s withdrawing again.

Jaime had been close, so close to getting to a point where he thinks Brienne might have let him finally get his mouth on her. 

Then his father had to ruin it.

Not to mention Tywin’s demands for her attendance at the Lannister’s annual gala.

And finding out Brienne’s father knows about their relationship.

Realistically, Jaime knows that’s what normal people do. They tell their friends and family about whom they are dating. 

Normal people don’t have fathers who hire private investigators and go to great lengths to keep their children from anyone they consider unsuitable.

Jaime remembers Tysha. 

He probably should have told Brienne about that, try to make her understand why his father isn’t someone who should know about anything, but it’s not his story to tell. He can’t betray Tyrion’s trust even more.

Brienne says her father knows. Jaime knows Brienne doesn’t read most newspapers, and she definitely doesn’t read the gossip columns. He imagines her father doesn’t either, but he’s sure that he’s looked Jaime up. Jaime would, if it were Myrcella. 

The Lannisters are a staple in the gossip pages. If it’s not the entirely-founded-but-lacking-evidence rumors about him and Cersei; it’s about one of Tyrion’s drunken incidents. Or the also-entirely-founded rumors about Robert’s infidelity. Or how the family can’t seem to keep a nanny, full of speculation that somehow never hitting anything close to the truth. Probably because it’s easier to bribe people when children are involved. Play on their heartstrings. And if it’s not any of that, it’s the business. The corporate takeovers, the layoffs, the private equity deals that always end up with massive amounts of people unemployed.

The Lannisters are not a family that any sane person would want to become involved with.

Not unless they’re as heartless and greedy as Tywin Lannister.

Jaime suspects that any parent who produced Brienne is far from heartless or greedy. 

“You have to understand my father,” Jaime says, unpacking the Pentoshi takeout he’s brought over to Brienne’s apartment. 

She’s been hesitant to come back to his place since Tywin interrupted them, and when she has been over, she’s barely let Jaime touch her.

Jaime sincerely hopes she’ll be more comfortable in her own space.

Terrible couch aside, he likes it at Brienne’s. It feels warm and cozy, nothing like his house. Nothing matches and everything is so colorful and broken-in. It feels like a place to actually live, which is something Jaime has never had in a home.

If he’s honest, it’s something he’s never even really seen in a home. 

Brienne is pulling out plates, one heavy and dark blue, the other painted with intricate designs in blue, yellow, and green. They’re bumping into each other in the kitchen, which is really far too small for two people, and the next time Brienne’s hip collides with his, Jaime loops his arm around her and pulls her in for a kiss.

He loves how Brienne tastes, sweet and with just a little vanilla from her chapstick. Jaime would spend hours kissing Brienne if he could, he’d never do anything else. 

“The food’s going to get cold,” Brienne says, pushing him away after several long, delicious minutes. Her lips are pink and she still looks almost surprised that he’s kissing her. “We should eat.”

“I’d love to eat,” Jaime says, squeezing her hip. It’s warm and solid underneath his hand. 

He’s not sure if Brienne misses the innuendo or chooses to ignore it, but she breaks away and starts dishing up the food. 

“I need to warn you about my father,” Jaime says, as he picks at his sesame chicken.

“I don’t think he likes me,” Brienne says, turning red. 

It’s adorable how much she blushes.

“Tywin doesn’t like anyone. That’s — he has a plan for all of us. Has since we were born. We work at the company, we live where he tells us, and he does his best to set us up with people he thinks would be suitable spouses. If he could get away with it, he’d still arrange all our marriages.” 

“And I’m not suitable.” 

If Brienne looked sad or angry, Jaime could handle it, but she just looks resigned and to his horror, he feels himself starting to get choked up.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he says. 

“It’s okay,” Brienne says. “He wouldn’t be the first person to point out I’m ugly.”

“You’re not — we’re coming back to that,” Jaime says. “It’s not about your looks. For Tywin, relationships are leverage. Robert was a senator. The women he’s wanted to set me up with are usually connected to businesses he wants to work with or acquire.”

“That’s terrible,” Brienne says, looking horrified.

Jaime grins wryly. “If Sansa or Margaery were a few years older, they’d probably be on the list. He’d love to find a way to screw over the Starks.” 

“Are you happy with that?”

“Happiness is irrelevant,” Jaime says. “It’s about responsibility. That’s the Lannister way. I’m going to try to stop him, I swear, I don’t — I can’t lose you, Brienne.”

Brienne is looking at Jaime like she can’t believe he’s real.

“ _You_ lose me?” She shakes her head. “I should be worried about losing you.”

Jaime collects their plates and puts them on the coffee table before pulling Brienne closer to him. She goes easily, tucking her head onto his shoulder. 

It’s on the tip of Jaime’s tongue to say how much he loves her, but she still looks so surprised by affection that he knows it’s too soon.

“You won’t,” he says instead. 

“I can’t be afraid of your father forever,” Brienne says. “Not if this is … if you want to keep this … if you want to keep going out.”

“I do,” Jaime says firmly. He barely refrains from adding, _forever_.

“I might as well get it over with,” Brienne says. She has her jaw set in the particular way she does when she’s decided to tackle something difficult. 

Usually Clegane. 

“It’s black tie. You’ll need a formal gown.”

Brienne grimaces.

“Loras is going to be thrilled,” she mutters.

“Has your father said anything about me?” Jaime finally asks.

“Mmm.” Brienne snuggles against him. “He thinks your company is terrible.”

“Well, he’s not wrong.”

“But he likes the stories I’ve told him about you.”

Jaime is slightly concerned about what stories Brienne might be sharing, but she knows her father better than he does. 

“Even if he hated you,” Brienne says. “It wouldn’t matter.”

“But it would hurt you,” Jaime says. 

That’s the difference. Most of his family could fling themselves off the cliffs at Casterly Rock and Jaime wouldn’t shed a tear. Brienne clearly adores her father, which is a concept Jaime has a great deal of difficulty wrapping his head around.

Brienne’s hair is soft against his neck. She’s so blond it’s almost translucent, a totally different shade from Jaime’s golden hair. Gold for Lannisters, Cersei always says. Jaime can’t help but wonder if her hair is that same shade everywhere …

Which brings him to her earlier comments.

“You aren’t ugly,” Jaime says. 

Brienne stiffens, looking away. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I’m not,” Jaime says. 

“Oh? Then what did you think the first time you saw me?”

“That you were in your office too late,” Jaime says. “That you were very strong. And that I wanted to fuck you.”

Brienne pulls back, scandalized, as though they haven’t been slowly proceeding towards just that for some time. 

“Jaime!” She’s blushing again.

“I also thought that I wanted to see how red you could turn.” Jaime pulls her back, kissing her deeply. 

Brienne doesn’t look like she believes him, but she also doesn’t look like she’s going to argue. Not at the moment, anyway. Jaime moves to pull her onto his lap, but he has forgotten that Briene’s couch is nowhere near as large as his, and he miscalculates, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. 

“That was impressive,” Jaime mumbles, wishing he’d been smoother about it. 

“We should clean up anyway,” Brienne says, extricating herself and gathering the food and plates. Jaime helps, but stops her before she can get out of the kitchen.

Brienne is tall and strong and could throw him around if she wanted to, but she lets Jaime press her up against the refrigerator and kiss her, long and deep and hot. Jaime’s head still spins with it, how warm and solid she feels against him when he presses up against her. 

“Can I stay here tonight?” 

He hadn’t meant to ask that, and he’s not surprised when Brienne pushes him back gently, putting space between them.

“Jaime, I’m still not ready.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Jaime says. “I won’t push, it’s not about sex. I just want to sleep.”

“I don’t know.” Brienne is chewing on her lower lip again, and Jaime can’t resist leaning in and kissing her until she stops, soothing the spot she’s been biting with his tongue. 

“Don’t trust yourself around me?” He grins. “I am irresistible.”

“You’re very full of yourself, aren’t you?” 

“You can’t say it’s not true,” Jaime says. 

“Why do you want to stay anyway, if we’re not doing anything?” Brienne looks genuinely confused.

“First of all, because I like you,” Jaime says. 

“And second?”

“I have nightmares,” Jaime confesses. He can’t believe he’s admitting to this. “Since the — since my hand. There’s only been two times that I haven’t had one.”

Jaime reaches out to stroke Brienne’s cheek, waiting for her to put the pieces together, but she still looks mystified.

“The nights you were next to me,” he says.

Curling up in bed with his arms wrapped around Brienne is exactly as comforting and wonderful as he remembers. Even more so because this time Jaime isn’t being vaguely inappropriate and they’re both awake, Brienne’s blue eyes staring at him across the pillow, her strong arm wrapped around his waist. 

It’s the best sleep Jaime thinks he’s ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne's insecurities aren't just about looks — she's certainly been told looks are the only reason men bother to spend time with women and has also been told she's dull and uninteresting in addition to being unattractive. She's genuinely baffled by Jaime 
> 
> Jaime, meanwhile, is slowly realizing this relationship exists in reality and all that comes with reality. It's going to be a tough road for him, in terms of his self-esteem and self-loathing. He's very aware of how much baggage he brings.


	41. Chapter Forty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long Night at the Lannisters.

Casterly Rock is as austere and grand as ever when Jaime pulls up. Tyrion stares at it with an equally displeased expression and even Tommen and Myrcella seem subdued in the back seat.

“Might as well get it over with,” Tyrion says grimly.

All of the family is here, the house full of aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone in suits and dresses, slinky for the women and frilly for the girls. Jaime is quickly shuffled off for drinks and cigars with the men, listening to his cousins boast about their various business successes. None of which seem terribly impressive, but then Jaime isn’t entirely sure what his job even is, so it isn’t like he has room to talk.

They make it through drinks and are halfway into the seven-course formal dinner when Tywin fixes him with a gaze and asks about Brienne.

Or, as Tywin says, his “young woman.”

“Her name is Brienne,” Jaime says, through gritted teeth, staring down at his still-full plate, because there's nothing soft enough to cut with a fork or small enough to eat without cutting. 

“Ah, yes,” Tywin says. “Tarth, isn’t it?”

“Like that backwater island?” Willem snorts. Jaime has never liked cousin Willem.

“It’s very nice,” cousin Joy says mildly, from down the table. “They’re very focused on ecological preservation. We do a lot of research there.”

That’s right. Joy is getting her Ph.D. in biology, much to Tywin’s displeasure. 

“It’s very pretty,” Aunt Desmara allows. “But the shopping is terrible.” 

“You’re dating this chick?” Cousin Lancel has finally caught up. “I thought you were queer.” 

“Oh, he most assuredly is not, the way he moons over Brienne,” Tyrion says. He’s already on his third glass of wine, and gods only know how many Manhattans he had earlier. 

Tyrion’s quip turns into a conversation about when Uncle Kevan met Aunt Dorna and was apparently struck dumb before following her around like a puppy. Luckily, that takes the heat off Jaime. He’s still starving by the time dinner ends, but that’s a much more manageable problem. He can always sneak into the kitchens later and see what’s around. 

Tywin corners him after dinner, pulling Jaime into his study and pouring them both large glasses of scotch.

“You’re serious about this woman.”

“Brienne,” Jaime says again. Tywin stares impassively at him from across the desk.

“How serious?”

“That’s really not any of your concern, right now.”

Tywin snorts. “You’re my son, everything is my concern. Are you planning on marrying this girl?”

“It’s too soon to talk about that,” Jaime says. He would marry Brienne, in a heartbeat, but he knows she would run away at the very idea right now. 

“She’s not attractive and there are far superior options,” Tywin says. “But she seems to be fairly respectable. Even if her family has abdicated their rightful position as lords of Tarth.”

It hasn’t occurred to Jaime that Brienne is one of those Tarths, but he supposes he shouldn’t be too surprised. 

“Though, they do still hold the title,” Tywin continues, a glint in his eyes. 

No wonder his father asked about marriage. Tywin’s probably scheming about how Jaime could be Lord Tarth already. 

“Brienne is attractive,” Jaime says, instead of addressing that directly. “She’s also kind and smart and generous and interesting. She’s strong and she’s capable and she’s a better person than any of us will ever be.”

Tywin’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. “You’re in love with her.”

In a normal family, that would come before questions about marriage, Jaime imagines, but then when have Lannisters been normal. 

“Meeting Brienne is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please, Father, please do not do anything to drive her away,” Jaime says. 

He’s a 42-year old man begging his father to leave his girlfriend alone, which is absurd, but Jaime is willing to let go of his pride if that’s what it takes for him to keep Brienne.

Brienne says she won’t be driven off by Tywin, but Jaime knows what his father is capable of. He knows Brienne might not be allowed to make that choice.

Tywin dismisses him shortly thereafter. 

Jaime suffers through the rest of the evening, until everyone has drifted off to their own homes or one of the many guest bedrooms. 

He wastes no time stripping his suit off and changing into the silk pajamas that have been left on the bed. From where, Jaime doesn’t know, but he’s not terribly sure he cares either.

He wonders what Brienne is doing now. He wonders if she still keeps vigil all night. Tywin had stopped doing it shortly after Tyrion was born, declaring the entire thing to be foolish superstition, but Tyrion and Jaime have both promised the kids that they will stay up with them. 

They sneak off to the library after everyone is in bed, both kids giggling madly as they creep down the hall in new pajamas — dragons with candle crowns for Myrcella, kittens in winter hats for Tommen — though Jaime makes a detour to the kitchen to throw together a messy but incredibly satisfying sandwich.

By the time he gets to the library, Tyrion has pulled several history books off the shelves and Myrcella and Tommen are curled up together on one of the stiff leather couches.

They let Jaime sit with them when he asks, grinning and laughing.

Tyrion reads some of the old stories, though Jaime is fairly certain he is skipping over a lot of details, tales of the Battle of the Living and the many characters that took part in the battle. He takes special delight in the stories about the Kingslayer and the Imp. 

Jaime has vague memories of doing this as a child. His mother’s face is hazy in his memory now, just an impression of blonde hair and a kind smile, but he remembers listening to the stories. He and Cersei would curl up under a blanket, cozy and warm with cups of cocoa, and listen to her read. Cersei had loved the stories about her namesake, even though she’d eventually go mad and be remembered as Cersei the Cruel. 

That Cersei had died with her brother, buried under rubble as Daenerys Targaryen had burned the city to cinders. Jaime thought that was the saddest part of everything, how terrified they must have been with battle raging outside, but Cersei said it was destiny. Twins are born together, twins live together, and twins die together, she’d said, and Jaime had always believed her.

That Cersei and Jaime had been lovers too, although it probably wasn’t so taboo then, considering the Targaryens had married brother and sister all the time. Jaime thinks that might be where his sister had gotten her ideas.

But the memories of the Nights’ Vigil are before all of that, when he and Cersei were nothing more than brother and sister, whispering wishes into each other’s ears and dreaming about the presents heaped under the Weirwood tree. They would play games and sing the old songs and read stories. Jaime had tried so hard to stay awake until dawn, but he’d never managed it. Even Tywin had been there, Jaime thinks, reading some of the stories and letting them bang drums outside when the sun rose. 

Jaime isn’t sure if he’s making the part about his father up or not. It certainly doesn’t seem like anything Tywin would do.

But everyone says his father was different when Jaime’s mother was alive.

Casterly Rock felt warmer then, less severe, or maybe Jaime was just a child and didn’t know any different. Once Tyrion was born and their mother died, everything stopped. The family still held the formal dinners for the extended Lannisters and the morning breakfast, but there was no more vigil. No more Weirwood tree. A few gifts exchanged, but nothing like the celebrations Jaime sees in all the advertisements of the season. 

Jaime should have insisted they get a Weirwood tree this year, for Myrcella and Tommen.

Tommen only makes it a few hours before falling asleep on the couch. Myrcella lasts a little bit longer, but she passes out during a story about Ser Duncan the Tall. 

Jaime considers trying to stay awake himself, because he has always wanted to do a Vigil, but he can’t resist the lure of sleep, either.

Jaime wakes up with a scream caught in his throat, the memory of a boot on his wrist sending pain shooting down to where his right hand should be. 

It takes him a minute to place where he is. Jaime’s neck hurts from sleeping at an odd angle and his stump is sore from wearing his prosthetic for too many hours. Tommen and Myrcella are curled up like puppies, and Tyrion is snoring away in an armchair, a book open on his lap.

For a brief moment, Jaime feels like they are a normal family.

The extended family breakfasts stopped years ago, as various cousins had their own families and children. So it’s just the four of them, plus Tywin and Aunt Genna, who divorced her husband years ago and whose children are all grown. 

Tywin scowls at the pajamas, but Jaime ignores him. “It’s First Dawn,” he says. “Let the kids enjoy it.”

Tywin scowls even harder when he realizes Tommen’s pajamas have kittens all over them. 

The kids have far too many presents, because apparently all of the uncles (save Stannis) have gone overboard. Not to mention the extended family and various and assorted friends. Most of the gifts are absolutely perfect, which makes up for Tywin’s predictably tone-deaf choices.

Tywin gives Myrcella a porcelain doll, the kind Jaime recognizes from Cersei’s childhood that can’t be played with, only put on a shelf and admired. Tommen gets a set of building blocks that are meant to encourage engineering. At least those will get used, given the way Myrcella eyes them. Jaime and Tyrion both get silk ties in Lannister colors, which is roughly the fifth year in Tywin’s assistant’s gift-giving rotation for adult men. Next year, if Jaime remembers correctly, will be cufflinks.

Jaime saves Brienne’s gift for last. He’s already teared up once, when he opened a clumsily formed bowl that Tommen made of craft clay (“To hold stuff from your pockets!”) and Myrcella has made him a clock (“From a kit, Uncle Jaime,” she says, rolling her eyes when he expresses his admiration) out of an old record, both of which are imperfect and perfect at the same time.

Jaime remembers making things like that in school, for holidays, but he never remembers what happened to them after that. He knows they would never give them to Tywin, though. 

Probably they got thrown in the trash somewhere.

Jaime barely manages not to cry when he unwraps the boxing gloves Brienne has given him. They’re custom, gorgeous leather and stitching that shows they’re high quality, and the right one is designed to accommodate his stump and padded to resemble the weight of a fist.

He has no idea where she even found something like that, but it’s perfect and thoughtful and just so Brienne that he smiles stupidly at the box for several long moments until Tyrion elbows him in the side.

Aunt Genna corners him after breakfast. 

“You remind me of your father,” she says, and Jaime recoils in horror.

Aunt Genna laughs. “No, not like that. Sit down.”

Jaime does.

“Do you remember what it was like before your mother died?” Aunt Genna asks.

“Barely,” Jaime says. 

“I know it’s hard to believe now,” Aunt Genna says. “But your father loved your mother. He thought the sun rose and set by her. After she died … well. Things would have been different if she’d lived.”

“Okay,” Jaime says slowly.

“The look in your eyes when you talk about your Brienne is how he used to look with Joanna.”

Aunt Genna hands him a small box. 

Jaime opens it to find a ring, like nothing he would have expected from the Lannisters. The band is twisted silver and gold, with a sapphire set in the center, flanked by two rubies that hover somewhere between pink and gold. It’s small, for a Lannister piece, though the ring itself is large enough to almost fit Jaime.

“It’s been in the family for generations, but nobody knows who owned it originally,” Aunt Genna says. “That’s Valeryian steel, you know.” Jaime almost drops the box.

“I had a dream the other night,” Aunt Genna says. “About … well, never mind what it was about. But I think you should have this.”

“I’m not, we’re not,” Jaime starts.

“Not yet, maybe.” Aunt Genna smiles. “But you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wedding rings would likely have been pure gold at the time and engagement rings weren't super common until later, but just roll with this okay. Because WHAT HISTORICAL LANNISTER MIGHT HAVE COMMISSIONED A LARGE, VALERYIAN STEEL RING WITH SAPPHIRES? Hmm. I WONDER.


	42. Chapter Forty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime throws himself into the preparing for the gala in hopes he'll stop worrying about what happens after.

Jaime prepares for the Lannister gala like a man preparing for war. 

Tywin hasn’t given any hints on what he’s dug up about Brienne, other than the conversation over the holiday.

Jaime would love to believe that means Tywin has accepted things and is going to leave Jaime and Brienne alone, but Jaime isn’t a fool.

His father doesn’t let go of anything so easily.

Jaime distracts himself getting everything sorted. The gala is on Saturday, so he’s arranged to shift the Sunday handover with Stannis. Jaime will take the kids to the event, which childhood does not exempt one from, and Stannis will pick them up in the early(ish) evening. 

Stannis is incredibly disapproving of keeping a six and ten-year-old out until 10 pm, per Tywin’s minimum attendance rules, and Jaime is horrified to find himself agreeing with the uptight man.

Jaime has his tux cleaned, but he has to get Myrcella and Tommen suitable garments, as neither of them fit in the clothes from the previous year, which have finally been retrieved from the Baratheon house. 

Jaime hasn’t seen any of those things worn, outside of school uniforms. 

The Tyrells are handling Brienne’s clothing, which is reassuring, because Jaime knows they’ll understand the level of formality required. Brienne has no idea what she’ll be walking into, and Jaime is fairly convinced she’ll break up with him the minute she sees what being a Lannister is like.

Pia takes pity on him and goes with him to look for outfits for the children. His assistant is probably a poor choice, but as much as he’s growing to like Sansa and Margaery, Jaime doesn’t want to spend an afternoon shopping with them. 

Especially not once he’s figured out that he knows Margaery because she was _also_ one of the Baratheon nannies. Before Joffrey started being truly cruel, but when he was still old enough to be a spoiled brat.

Pia is appalled at the idea of child-sized tuxedos. Jaime makes a mental note to introduce her to Brienne some time, if Brienne doesn’t dump him after the gala, because the two would definitely get along.

Jaime winds up promising Tommen all sorts of sugary treats to get him to stand still long enough for the tailor to pin the tuxedo for adjustment.

The dirty look Pia gives him suggests that isn’t an ideal method of parenting.

Jaime still winds up doing the same later, because Myrcella enjoys dressing up and pretending to be a princess for about an hour before devolving into a sulky mess. Jaime isn’t having fun either, because the dresses Myrcella likes are too casual and easy to move in to be approved for the event. The ones Jaime knows Tywin would approve of are deemed scratchy and uncomfortable by Myrcella, who pouts brilliantly.

In addition to promising enough pastries to send a person into sugar shock, Jaime finds himself coaxing Myrcella into a dress by comparing it to Elsa’s from _Frozen_.

Which makes Jaime aware that he knows enough Disney princesses to do such a thing.

From the way she’s stifling laughter, Pia finds the whole thing hilarious. 

She finds it horrifying, too, when Jaime looks up from his sixth argument with Myrcella (this one involves actual crying, from Myrcella, not Jaime, although it’s a close thing) only to find Tommen has completely vanished from the store. 

Pia locates him in the pet store a few doors down, happily petting a cage full of kittens. 

Pia also convinces Jaime not to buy Tommen a kitten as a bribe, muttering something about rewarding bad behavior and pet mills. 

“Adopt don’t shop!” Pia lectures, as Jaime drags everyone to a coffee shop. Tommen forgets about the stress entirely when presented with a brownie the size of his head. Myrcella takes longer, but a massive cookie and a promise to allow her to wear a tiara to the gala get her to relent.

Jaime is pretty sure Aunt Genna has a child-size tiara, because he recalls Cersei wearing it.

He doesn’t tell Pia, who is politely exclaiming over the idea, that Myrcella will be wearing real diamonds.

He probably shouldn’t tell Brienne that either.

None of it eases the knot of anxiety in Jaime’s stomach. 

Brienne hates being the center of attention, she hates trying to look feminine, and she hates the Lannister family based on Jaime’s stories alone.

Jaime knows the gala is going to be torture for her, even more than it is for him. He knows what to expect. Brienne doesn’t, even if she thinks she does, because there’s no preparing for the Lannisters. 

Jaime has seen any number of outsiders show up as Lannister dates and turn and run after one family event or encounter with Tywin. It’s happened to Tyrion, to just about every single one of Jaime’s cousins, even Uncle Gerion. 

It’s why Jaime has tried to keep Brienne away from his family.

But she’s going to get the full Lannister experience soon enough. 

There is nothing Jaime can do about it. 

He’s old enough now to know abandoning the family and striking out on his own isn’t a realistic idea. Even if Jaime did such a thing, he’s reminded of the few family members whose company he does enjoy. He’d miss Tyrion and Genna and Joy, at least.

And there’s no way he’s giving up Myrcella and Tommen. 

Jaime wishes he had time to see Brienne before, to get one last moment before she realizes the enormity of what she’s walking into and turns him away. Just one last day to kiss her and hold her and touch her. 

Maybe he can convince her to skip the ball entirely. 

Maybe it won’t go as badly as Jaime thinks.

Maybe Brienne won’t realize she has far better options in life than associating herself with the Lannisters.

Jaime doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's parenting definitely swings a little more towards indulgent, though he does try. 
> 
> Also, spending time with his family is definitely a trigger for all of his insecurity and issues, so he's going to have a lot more going on emotionally, though he's better at hiding it than Brienne.
> 
> Also, smut in chapter 44? So that's coming?


	43. Chapter Forty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime thinks they should have skipped the gala entirely.

Jaime has no idea how he keeps his hands off Brienne in the limo on the way to the gala. She’s sitting there, looking stunning, and flushed red as he keeps looking at her. There’s just so much skin – her sculpted, muscular arms and the glimpse of thigh he gets when she moves. 

Jaime has had literal dreams about Brienne’s thighs.

He’s going to send Loras Tyrell flowers for getting Brienne into this dress, he really is, because she almost glows, how beautiful she is. The blue makes her eyes seem even more prominent, and Jaime wants to fuck Brienne when she’s wearing sweaty workout clothes, he doesn’t need her dressed up, but this...

Brienne looks formidable, powerful. Like a queen who could rule the world. He’s never seen her this dolled up and put together and all Jaime wants to do is drag her back to her apartment and mess her up.

Especially when he fears this is going to be the last time they’re together.

Gods, they should have said screw it and stayed in Brienne’s apartment.

Then they arrive and Brienne takes off her coat and moves in front and oh gods, there’s nearly no back to the dress. Jaime stares dumbly at the sight of Brienne’s pale skin, the way her muscles flex and shift underneath.

She’s missing jewelry though. Jaime wonders how angry she’d be if he bought her some for the inevitable Lannister appearances. Sapphires for her eyes, and diamonds.

Next time he’ll do that.

If she stays.

“Jaime!” 

He’s pulled out of his stupor by one of his father’s associates. 

“Mr. Crakehall,” he says, reaching out to pull Brienne closer to him. “Nice to see you. This is Brienne Tarth.” 

Jaime swallows the word girlfriend, at first, out of habit, and then it strikes him that he doesn’t have to hide what they are to each other.

“Brienne is my girlfriend,” he says, loving the way the words feel in his mouth. It’s so novel that he almost forgets to feel self-conscious about shaking hands with his prosthetic. He’s grinning far broader than he should be, a man his age.

Crakehall looks confused.

It doesn’t get any less amazing to say as he works his way through the crowd. There’s Lefford and Kenning and Algood and the other Lefford and Marbrand — Jaime hopes Addam has come as well as his father, but it doesn’t look like it — and Serrett and Reyne.

Jaime tries to focus on the feeling he gets when he introduces such an amazing woman as his date, not on the creeping dread he has looking for his father.

Jaime lets his hand trail over the skin of Brienne’s back when the have a moment of quiet, tracing a finger over her spine to see her flush red and shiver at the sensation. 

“We could still leave,” Jaime whispers into her ear, pausing for a moment to nip at her earlobe. His father hasn’t found them yet. Jaime can still prevent it. “We could go back to your apartment and I could properly appreciate your gown.”

“This is inappropriate,” Brienne chides, though she tilts her head to give him better access to kiss down her neck. 

“You’re my girlfriend, I think it’s very appropriate,” Jaime says. 

“Jaime, you know we can’t. Your father won’t be happy if we do.”

Brienne really needs to stop mentioning his father when they’re like this.

“I don’t really care,” Jaime mutters, but he pulls back and returns his hand to the small of her back, feeling the warmth of her skin.

Tyrion is already drunk when they find him, which is not surprising at all, and Jaime snags some wine from a passing waiter before managing to make Brienne even angrier and sending her storming off to a balcony.

“Good job, brother,” Tyrion says, smirking.

“I hate these things.” Jaime tugs at his bow tie. “But she’s insistent on trying to make a good impression.” 

And Father is going to drive Brienne off and Jaime is going to go back to a pathetic, lonely existence. 

“Someone should tell her that’s impossible,” a voice says from behind them, and Jaime turns to see cousin Daven grinning at them both. “Jaime, I thought you’d never find anyone who could turn your head.”

“Brienne is a singular woman,” Tyrion says. 

“She’s very tall,” Daven says. “Looks like she could throw either of you over her shoulder.”

“She could,” Jaime says, drifting slightly at the idea.

It doesn’t occur to him that Daven coming over means his father is unaccounted for, not until he sees Brienne appear from one of the balconies, paler than usual with panic all over her face.

Jaime’s stomach sinks. This will be it, then.

He wonders what his father offered her. Or what he threatened. Jaime tries to keep his tone light when he asks, to keep it normal, because Brienne doesn’t deserve his guilt on top of what he’s already put her through. 

Jaime braces himself for the result, for Brienne to tell him it’s over. 

Then she tells him what his father said, which is as close to approval as Jaime could hope for, and tells him she wants to leave _together_. 

Jaime thinks once again that Brienne is a miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is absolutely going to get fancy jewelry she has no idea what to do with. And poor Jaime is just a little ball of lust and terror all night.


	44. Chapter Forty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime loves waking up next to Brienne.

Jaime already knows he likes waking up in bed with Brienne. It turns out it’s even better when they’re both naked, when he has the vivid memory of finally being inside her.

Her eyes had gone so impossibly wide and wondering. Jaime barely even remembers his first time, but he’s fairly certain it wasn’t as charged as the previous night. 

It wasn’t his finest work, given how surprisingly overwhelmed Jaime had felt, but he’s dedicated to making up for that.

Jaime wants to show Brienne _everything_. 

Brienne, modest even in sleep, has pulled the covers up to her chin. So Jaime can’t see when he slides his hand up to her breast, only feel the warmth of Brienne’s skin under his palm. She’s on her back, hair spread out in tangles, her lips still slightly swollen from last night. 

She shifts in her sleep when Jaime presses closer, feeling her nipple start to pebble under his touch. 

He kisses her neck, her chin, her shoulder, whatever he can reach. Jaime needs to shave, he’s probably scratching her with his stubble, but he can’t bring himself to move away from her warmth. 

Brienne’s eyes finally open, and he sees the moment it takes for her to realize what is going on, probably similar to the seconds it took him to sort reality from one of his dreams. 

He knows she’s figured it out when a red flush creeps over her face. 

“Good morning,” Jaime says, leaning up on his elbow to kiss her before she can get self-conscious.

They could both do with brushing their teeth, but Jaime forgets about it quickly when Brienne opens her mouth and tangles her tongue with his.

Jaime’s hard against her hip already, the slide of her skin delicious against him. 

“Jaime, it’s morning,” Brienne says, when they break apart for air.

“Very observant of you.” Jaime pinches her nipple lightly, gratified at the gasp it tears from her throat. 

He starts trying to shift the covers down as he touches her. 

“We shouldn’t,” Brienne says, eyes darting around the room, though she still arches her back as he runs his hand over her ribs. “It’s daylight.”

“We definitely should.” Jaime leans over to kiss her again, pulling the covers down more as he goes. Her collarbones are lovely, and so is the noise Brienne makes when he scrapes his teeth across them lightly. “There aren’t rules. We can fuck anytime we like.” 

“Jaime!” 

“And I would very much like to,” Jaime continues. Her breasts are exposed now, and he happily leans over to start kissing them. He takes particular joy in kissing the spots he’d left marks on the night before. “If you want to.”

“There’s so much light,” Brienne says. Her bedroom curtains are sheer and the sunlight pours over them. Jaime can see red marks along her skin from his mouth as he uncovers her stomach and rests his cheek on the soft skin there. 

“I’ve seen you in daylight before,” Jaime points out. He can’t resist rubbing his face against her abs, grinning when Brienne shivers in response. Then a terrible thought occurs to him. “Do you regret it?”

“No!” Brienne sits up then, jostling Jaime from his position. He can’t really complain when he winds up with his face resting against her thigh, tantalizingly close to where he’d much rather be. 

Jaime winces when he sees fingerprint-shaped bruises on the side of her leg. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, running his fingers over the purpling skin. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” 

Jaime kisses the bruises anyway, hearing Brienne sigh.

“Decided to run away then?” Jaime tries to keep his tone joking, but he can hear the bitterness creeping in. “Lannister family events have a way of doing that.”

At least he got to be with her once.

Brienne tugs him up by his hair, and if Jaime wasn’t preparing himself to have his heart broken, he’d really be enjoying the moment. 

“Jaime, no.” Brienne kisses him then, gentle and sweet and Jaime clutches at her, pulling her close. 

Jaime lets his forehead rest against hers. 

“It’s just a little overwhelming,” Brienne says. Her voice catches a little. “Last night … us. I never thought it could be like that.”

“It can be better,” Jaime promises. 

Brienne pulls away, an uncertain look on her face. “Did I do something wrong? Did you not enjoy rftit?”

“No!” Jaime wraps his arm around her, doesn’t let her scoot away. “You were amazing. Are amazing. Me, on the other hand.” 

Brienne is turning pinker, but she puts her hand on Jaime’s chest, and now he’s the one gasping, even though it’s a simple touch. “I enjoyed it,” she says softly. 

Then Jaime can’t resist kissing her again, deeper and hungrier, pulling her onto his lap despite her protests that she’s too big. She’s already wet, he can feel it where she slides against his cock, the heavy weight of her pressing into him so perfectly his eyes roll back in his head. 

“I can make it even better,” Jaime promises, though the urgency he’s feeling now is contrary to all his careful plans to take Brienne apart, over and over, until she can’t think of anything else. “Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll do it. Anything.”

Brienne just pulls him into another kiss, her hands sliding over him, his skin burning everywhere she touches. Jaime barely has the presence of mind to grab a condom before he’s rolling them over and pushing into her again and she feels just as good as the night before. Jaime groans into her skin. 

He starts to pull back when she winces, but Brienne locks her ankles behind his thighs and Jaime bucks helplessly against her. She’s so hot and tight around him, and she just keeps kissing him, and Jaime loses himself in the feel of it all. Brienne’s movements are getting more confident, her hips rocking in counterpoint with him as they move, but all too soon Jaime feels his orgasm sweep over him in a wave, pulsing inside Brienne for what feels like an age. 

As soon as he regains enough of his senses to move with any sort of purpose, Jaime reaches down, feeling Brienne shudder as he slips out of her. The whimpering noise she makes when he withdraws would be enough to undo him again, if he hadn’t just come, but all he can do right now is press against her and rub his fingers over her. 

Jaime can’t stop kissing her and Brienne is gasping and moaning into his mouth as her hips arch up to chase his touch. Jaime can tell she’s trying to be quiet, and it only makes him more determined, makes him pay attention to every touch that makes her respond more intensely. 

When she comes, Brienne pulls away to gasp for air, keening against his shoulder while her thighs shake and press together, trapping his hand. It’s beautiful and Jaime is never, ever going to get enough of her like this. 

Jaime wishes they could stay here, cocooned in Brienne’s white sheets, wrapped around each other, and hide from the world forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Jaime is VERY happy. And still horny.


	45. Chapter Forty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Uncles discuss Tommen and Myrcella's future.

Jaime can’t help but resent Sam a little. The man is perfectly nice, but the way he holds little Sam and how Gilly fawns over both of them reminds Jaime that the children he’s increasingly sure are his were kept out of his life entirely. While Sam gets to be a father to a child that isn’t even his by blood.

Holding Gilly’s baby makes Jaime remember the brief time he’d held Cersei’s children as infants. Even Joffrey was innocent and light in his arms then, red-faced and squalling but utterly perfect. Jaime had wished that it was their child, that he and Cersei were able to be proud parents, never once considering that it might actually be true. 

Not that he would have been allowed to be a father even if Cersei had told him..

If the children are his. Tyrion reminds him they have no proof. Just very strong suspicions, suspicions Jaime thinks Stannis is starting to share. 

The upside is that it’s not illegal. Tyrion has done some discreet digging, and the Targaryen-era laws are still on the books. Technically, it’s not illegal for brother and sister to be together, to have children, even to marry. Frowned upon and considered a sin by the Faith of the Seven and the Old Gods, but not actually against the law.

Jaime isn’t sure if he wants to be Myrcella and Tommen’s father or not. He wants to protect them, to give them something better than the childhood he and his siblings had, more than anything, but to tar them with his shame makes him cringe. 

Rocking little Sam in his arms in the hospital when they visit, Jaime can’t help but imagine a baby with hair so blond it’s nearly white and big blue eyes and freckles. 

Brienne has never mentioned children though, and Jaime pushes the thought out of his mind. He’ll take whatever future she’s willing to give him, however it looks.

Still, Jaime is elated when they meet for dinner at Stannis’s to discuss the children. Stannis is insisting Shireen learn to cook, in preparation for adulthood, and she beams as she presents a sloppy but delicious lasagna. Over plates of noodles and sauce, Renly gently raises the issue of permanent living arrangements. 

It’s been great getting to know the kids, but the constant moving houses is taking a toll on everyone. 

Tommen doesn’t wait a second before piping up.

“I want to live with Uncle Jaime,” he says. 

“I like Uncle Jaime’s too,” Myrcella says. “Or Uncle Renly and Uncle Loras.”

Renly and Loras beam. 

“You don’t need to make a decision right now,” Stannis says. “It’s a big thing to decide. You can have time to think it over.” 

Tommen shrugs. “Don’t need to think.” 

After dinner, when Shireen takes the kids to go play a board game, Stannis grills Jaime over glasses of port. Stannis seems convinced that Jaime has lured the kids to want to live with him by providing endless amounts of candy and not enforcing the rules.

It’s Stannis who had insisted upon coming up with a set of cohesive rules when the arrangement first started, hashing out bedtimes and eating habits and homework time that would stay the same even when the kids changed houses. 

“And you haven’t been breaking the rules?” Stannis asks again.

“No, that would be me,” Tyrion says. “It doesn’t appear to be enough to sway them, thank the gods.”

Tyrion has already said he has no desire to be a full-time parent, and he keeps saying it at every opportunity. 

“I’m the fun uncle,” Tyrion insists. “I’ll be the one to take them on weekends and return them full of sugar and buy them alcohol when they’re teenagers. I’m not a parent.”

“Hey, they like us too,” Renly says. Loras pouts slightly beside him. “And we’re a two-parent family.’

“Give it time,” Jaime mutters. 

“Also, you and Brienne will have to stop fucking on your couch,” Renly tells him.

Tyrion makes a disgusted noise and Jaime stares at Renly. 

“How would you know that?”

“Gendry got an eyeful cleaning offices,” Renly says. He pauses. “A few times.”

“Please, for the love of all the gods, never tell Brienne that,” Jaime says. He’s pretty sure she’d spontaneously combust on the spot if she knew. 

Renly looks at Jaime like he’s being stupid. 

“Of course not, she’d die,” Renly says. 

Stannis clears his throat and redirects the conversation back to the children, and eventually they agree to give it a week or so to mull and reconvene.

Jaime tries not to get too hopeful. He does need to talk the idea over with Brienne, and he doesn’t want to expect too much when there’s so much unknown. Including Cersei’s future. She’s still under evaluation at the mental institution, and nobody really thinks she’s going to get out, but Jaime can’t help but worry it’s all going to slip through his fingers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The favored Uncle are SO HAPPY. LOL. I imagine that Stannis is overprotective and makes Shireen wait to do a lot of things, but at the same time has a list of Essential Life Skills she must learn before 18.
> 
> Poor Gendry. He's mortified by knowing that much about Brienne and Jaime, and Renly is like SHE MUST NEVER KNOW when Gendry approaches him to ask for advice on what to do. Gendry mostly tries to forget what he saw. Wipe it from his brain.


	46. Chapter Forty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei isn't supposed to have any contact with the outside world while she's under evaluation.

Cersei isn’t supposed to be allowed to send mail. Jaime knows it’s a condition; if she’s staying in the institution for evaluation, she can’t have outside contact. 

So he doesn’t suspect anything when he gets a plain looking package.

What Jaime finds inside it is alarming. The letters are scrawled in handwriting that’s nothing like Cersei’s usual controlled cursive and the text is even more paranoid than usual. She sends letters for the children as well, which Jaime absolutely will not give them. Those mostly include promises that Mommy will come for them soon and protect them.

Jaime can count the number of times he’s heard either child mention Cersei on his remaining fingers. 

The letter for him, though, is the one that makes the least sense. Cersei alternates between raging at him for abandoning her and begging him to come save her. She promises they will live and die together like their namesakes (and really, what _had_ Tywin been thinking when he named the two of them?) and insists she’s innocent. Cersei blames Tyrion, Stannis, Ned Stark, and any number of women for poisoning Robert against her. She swears this is all a plot, at one point insisting Tyrion must have killed Robert to frame her.

Jaime does not see any mention of the thugs she sent to kill him. 

The smart thing, Jaime knows, would be to take the letter to the police and turn it over. That’s what Brienne would do. Or turn it over to the family attorney, because it should absolutely help bolster the insanity claim Cersei’s defense team is making, if Cersei is claiming they are the reincarnation of their ancestors.

Except that for all the outlandish claims, the letter is largely coherent. Nothing Cersei says is realistic or smart, but there’s a logic to it that suggests she’s fully aware of what she’s writing. 

She tried to murder him, but Cersei is still his sister. Part of Jaime can’t help but feel that if he’d been stronger, if he’d resisted her from the start, none of this would have happened. 

His father always told him to protect his sister and Jaime has utterly failed. He may have kept creepy men and gold diggers away, but he’s never been able to save his twin from herself. 

Jaime can also imagine Tywin’s face if anyone outside the family saw the letter. Jaime could try to pass off the comments about their love and relationship and fucking ( _I miss you inside me_ , Cersei wrote, _I want to ride your cock until I can’t feel anything else_ ) as part of Cersei’s hysterical delusions. But even he doesn’t think that would be terribly convincing. 

_We’re just alike,_ Cersei scawled. _We’re the same and nobody else will accept you like I will._

Jaime takes the letters down to the maintenance area in the basement, tosses them in the furnace and watches them shrivel into ash. 

Jaime doesn’t ask, but it seems he’s not the only one to get correspondence from Cersei. Tyrion’s letter says the same things as Jaime’s, some of them at least, accusing him of a plot to orchestrate her downfall. Tyrion locks his in a safe and makes Jaime swear he’ll never mention it.

Renly and Loras get death threats for allegedly corrupting her precious babies. Jaime doesn’t know how she knows who has been taking care of Tommen and Myrcella. He suspects it’s the lawyers, probably in an attempt to reassure her they’re in good hands. Which might work if they were talking to anyone else. 

Stannis also gets accused of plotting. Jaime doesn’t see the contents of the letter, because Stannis doesn’t show it to him, just stiffly informs Jaime about it. He does mention that Cersei declared, repeatedly, that Jaime is going to avenge her and rescue her from this place.

Jaime is once again struck with the sinking feeling that Stannis has an idea about his and Cersei’s relationship that is very close to the truth. 

Stannis, of course, is an upright citizen who takes the letters he and Renly receive and delivers them to the city attorney. He tells Jaime this like he’s expecting an outburst, but all Jaime can do is sigh and scrub his face with his hands. 

All Jaime wants is for Cersei to stop making his life miserable, even from a supposedly secure institution.

Word comes back that Cersei had coerced one of the therapists into helping her get the materials to write letters and then smuggle the contents out of the hospital and mail them. The woman is fired, naturally, and nobody says how Cersei gained her cooperation but Jaime doesn’t need it spelled out.

Cersei has never had trouble getting on her knees to get what she wants. 

Jaime clings to Brienne especially hard after that letter, curling around her in sleep and compulsively reaching out to touch her whenever she’s in arm’s reach.

Brienne regards him a bit suspiciously but she doesn’t ask, and Jaime is pathetically grateful for it. He tags along when she goes back to her apartment, which she insists on doing every few nights, and hates the nights she insists on spending apart.

Jaime understands, rationally, that people need space (supposedly), and Brienne in particular isn’t used to having someone in her life all the time, but it still hurts. 

It still makes him think of Cersei pushing him off her as soon as she came (if she was feeling generous, she’d make sure he’d finished too) and hustling him out the door.

For secrecy, she’d said, and Jaime had accepted it.

Even when Brienne is back the next day, wrapping her strong arms around his waist and resting her head against his shoulder while he breathes in the fresh, clean scent of her shampoo and revels in the feeling of her body pressed against him. 

Not just in a sexual way, though Jaime doesn’t waste any time getting them both out of their clothes and into the bedroom. 

He feels strange, sometimes, when he marvels at waking up next to Brienne, hearing her snore lightly, learning the way she twists and turns in her sleep. Or waking up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and gently touching her and stroking her until she wakes up and they fall into each other, fucking themselves into exhaustion, which is the best cure for insomnia Jaime’s ever found. 

It’s silly that he’s so enamored with the newness of it, at his age, but he reminds himself that Brienne is too. She’s smiling shyly across the pillow at him in the mornings, shuffling awkwardly in the bedroom and learning how to get ready without tripping over each other. He loves how Brienne is still shy about touching him, but reaches out without hesitation when she does, looking the way Jaime feels, like she can’t believe she’s allowed. 

Brienne absolutely refuses to leave the door unlocked when she’s getting ready in the bathroom, even if she’s just brushing her teeth, and honestly, Jaime is fine with it, despite Bronn’s assertion that it’s not truly a relationship until you pee with the door open. Jaime _has_ coaxed Brienne into showering together sometimes, or taking advantage of the extra-large tub at his place, big enough to fit two six-foot-plus adults. 

It feels more real every day, and Jaime pushes Cersei’s letter to the back of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cersei isn't letting go, as we all know. 
> 
> The bit at the end with Brienne is also my response to the people who insist that being in a relationships means you have to let go of ALL your privacy and dignity. I personally refuse. :)


	47. Chapter Forty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is excited to plan a birthday for Brienne, though it breaks his heart to realize how few she's celebrated.

Brienne is shockingly resistant to celebrating her birthday. Jaime can’t get the entire story out of her, and he tries not to push too hard, but he gets the general idea that she didn’t have many friends growing up and parties hadn’t gone terribly well.

Jaime knows that feeling, considering the only birthday parties he’d had involved too-formal dinners with extended adults and the children of relatives and family friends, regardless of whether he liked or even knew them. 

But Margaery insists on planning something to try to make up for previous disappointments. Jaime rejects a significant number of her ideas, and finally they compromise on a historic themed sword fighting lesson and dinner followed by a visit to a club. Brienne is going to hate going to a club, but Margaery is firm about trying to get Brienne to loosen up.

It’s _fun_ , more than Jaime even expected. Brienne’s eyes light up when she gets handed a padded wooden sword and she’s absolutely as marvelous with it as Jaime imagined back when they first met.

He’d love to see her in armor, a real sword at her side. She’d be glorious.

Jaime doesn’t miss the look of shock on Brienne’s face when she sees the crowd that’s come to celebrate. Her friends from work, the pervy lunch group, her self-defense students, guys from the gym, even Tyrion and Bronn. 

Some people take to fighting better than others, and Jaime is highly amused at Arya’s tenaciousness. She’s like a tiny chihuahua, chasing after people’s ankles, but she’s far better than he’d imagine someone so small could be. 

Not good enough to keep Clegane from throwing her around like a sack of potatoes, but still impressive. 

Jaime might have slightly arranged it so he and Brienne would be the last in the fake melee. Most people give him a fairly wide berth while he swings with his clumsy left hand, and he doesn’t think Brienne notices. She stays in ‘til the end honestly, her height and strength making her a formidable opponent. Jaime will owe Clegane, especially since he saw Arya’s foot make contact with his ribs in a way that has to hurt, but it’s worth it to fight Brienne.

It’s not boxing and it’s nowhere near as good as it would be if he still had both his hands, but it’s still glorious. Jaime’s blood sings with competition and exertion. He doesn’t feel bad at all when Brienne pins him, the complete opposite of bad, actually, which is a situation that makes itself known very quickly. 

Jaime won’t be embarrassed about being hopelessly turned on by his incredible girlfriend, though, even if Brienne is a shade of red that he’s never seen on a person before. 

Jaime’s heart aches when he sees how shocked Brienne is by dinner and cake and presents. Jaime’s parties may have sucked, but there was still cake and gifts. Brienne looks as if this is beyond her wildest expectation.

Jaime needs to get her to talk about her past, needs to understand how such an amazing person was clearly so lonely and isolated for so long. He needs to know all the things to try and make up for, the things to give Brienne over and over until she understands she’s worthy. 

Brienne looks less enthused when Margaery bullies her into a dress for the club. Jaime almost drags Brienne away right then, because the skirt barely covers the tops of her thighs and that amount of freckled skin on display is far too tempting. 

Jaime can’t stop touching Brienne, and amazingly, she lets him. Probably because Ygritte’s been shoving tequila at everyone like it’s water, but Jaime will take Brienne’s willingness to show affection in public however he can get it. 

Jaime’s never been one to shy away from risky sex, and he’d love to see if he could make Brienne come in the booth where they’re seated, swallowing her cries while their friends dance on, oblivious, but he knows that’s going too far. 

Doesn’t mean he can’t tell her about it, though, whisper all the things he’d like to do. Especially when Ros and Shae start their sex appeal routine on a nearby table and Jaime sees the doubts rising in Brienne’s eyes. 

Jaime isn’t an idiot. Ros and Shae are both beautiful women and it’s objectively very appealing to watch them strip and writhe and bounce their way through a dance routine. But it’s nothing compared to the feel of Brienne’s skin or the warmth in her eyes or the way she somehow believes he’s worthy of her kindness and her love. 

Not to mention the way her muscles flex and how she can pick him up or hold him down. Someone like Shae holding Jaime down would be a farce, but Brienne could pin him so he truly couldn’t move, take what she wants from him, use him for her own satisfaction.

Someday, Jaime is going to convince Brienne to do just that. 

Besides, Jaime far prefers Brienne’s genuine reactions to a performance women like Shae and Ros put on. Their sex appeal is calculated and strategic, every move and sound designed to provoke a specific reaction. Which is enjoyable enough, Jaime knows; women like that (women like Cersei) know exactly what buttons to push to make a man respond. 

But Jaime finds he prefers the way Brienne still gasps in surprise at his touch and the small noises she tries to hold back. It’s not always ladylike, she doesn’t just moan prettily, she groans and grunts and squeaks, and it’s all completely genuine. The more confident she gets, the more she just does what feels good, regardless of whether it poses her body in the best light or not. Jaime knows Brienne is worried about whether she’s pleasing him, and he wishes he knew how to convince her that she doesn’t have to do anything to make him happy other than be herself. 

Though he wouldn’t say no to the shenanigans Sansa and Margaery are getting up to in one of the booths either. 

Still, Brienne is soft and loose from drinking and fun when they get home, but sober enough, and Jaime has plans to spend what remains of her birthday doing his best to erase any doubts about her sex appeal from her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Jaime TOTALLY engineered their sword fight and he has zero regrets.
> 
> And don't worry, you'll get some smut tomorrow. :D


	48. Chapter Forty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime feels a little bad about how tired and sore Brienne looks after her birthday. But only a little.

Jaime tries not to laugh the morning after Brienne’s birthday, when she buries her head under the pillow at the first ray of light coming through his window. 

“Head hurting?” he asks, giving into laughter when she mumbles something about dying and reaches one hand out to swat blindly at him. 

Jaime slips out of bed, kissing the back of Brienne’s neck and telling her to stay there while he gets breakfast. He doesn’t bother getting dressed as he fixes food. Jaime can’t cook much, especially now, but he can manage bacon, eggs and pre-made potatoes that just have to be reheated. He also fixes coffee and some of the strongest tea Brienne likes, putting it all on a tray he finds (huh, he has trays, who knew?) in the pantry. 

Brienne pulls herself to sit up when he returns, wincing with the movement, and Jaime feels a rush of conflicting emotions. There’s a distinct swell of pride when he sees how thoroughly debauched Brienne looks. Her hair’s sticking up in the back, mascara and eyeliner smeared on her face, and love bites dot her pale skin amidst a sea of freckles. He can feel himself getting hard at the sight and the awareness that he’s the one to mess her up so thoroughly and delightfully. At the same time, she looks sore beyond the hangover and Jaime worries he was too rough with her.

He hadn’t meant to be, but she had looked and felt so good and after what must have been a couple of hours touching and kissing and fucking her, it was hard to hold back. Especially when Brienne was so strong and sturdy underneath him, pushing back with equal strength. 

Gods, she’d felt so good, Jaime’s never seen anything like it, how much Brienne gave herself over to feeling, and Jaime had followed, the feel of it so strong it was almost like his body was operating outside his control. 

Brienne swallows the Advil he brings her, and works her way through most of the pot of tea and half a plate of food before she finally speaks.

“I feel like something trampled my skull,” she moans. 

Jaime smiles into her shoulder before stealing some bacon off the plate. 

“Hangovers will do that.”

“And every muscle in my body is sore.”

“Sorry,” Jaime says, feeling guilty again. “I got a little carried away.”

Brienne looks down at her lap, then mumbles something Jaime can’t quite catch around a mouthful of food.

She turns red when he asks her to repeat it. 

“I liked it,” she says quietly, staring at her lap. 

“I noticed,” Jaime can’t help saying. Brienne punches him lightly in the shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Brienne says, like he’s done her some kind of favor. 

“For what? I was enjoying myself just as much.” Jaime’s eyes glaze over just thinking about it, and his cock is definitely enjoying the memory. He takes the empty tray and puts it on the floor, shoving it away so he can wrap his arms around Brienne and pull her close.

“But it was … I mean, it was more about me than you,” Brienne says, still not quite looking at him. 

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t like it,” Jaime says. He doesn’t mention that he’s used to that, that he’s used to worse than that, that he’s _giving_ her this, she’s not taking, and that’s so important. 

Brienne is still moving gingerly, especially her head, and Jaime feels her tense when his erection brushes against her. He kisses her cheek gently.

“I’m sorry,” Brienne says, looking guilty. “I’m too sore, I can’t.”

Jaime shrugs. 

“Just because I’m hard doesn’t mean we have to do anything,” he reminds her. “I can wait. Or take care of it myself.”

And then Brienne tenses in an entirely different way, her eyes going dark. 

Jaime feels a rush of heat go through him.

“You like that idea,” he says, his voice coming out lower. “You could watch me.”

Brienne’s breath catches in her throat, and she bites down on her lower lip. Jaime can’t resist leaning forward to replace her teeth with his mouth, sucking gently on the spot she likes to worry when she’s nervous. 

“Do you want to watch me?” Jaime doesn’t give her a chance to respond, sliding back far enough for her to see clearly.

Not being able to touch her is almost painful, but the look in her eyes as she stares at him is almost as good. Jaime spreads his legs to give her a better view as he slides his hand over himself. Brienne gasps at the sight, shifting in a way Jaime knows means she’s turned on. 

“I used to think about this,” Jaime tells her as he strokes himself. “Before we met.”

“Jaime!” Brienne’s voice is scandalized, but she doesn’t look away. 

Jaime groans, swiping his thumb over the head of his cock, already leaking. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice,” Jaime tells Brienne. “Some days I’d see you through the window and have to come back here and jerk off to get any work done.” 

Brienne whines a little in the back of her throat. Jaime’s hand moves faster. 

This is something he’s never done before, but it’s fucking hot, and he tells Brienne that. Jaime tells her all the fantasies he had, the ones from when he didn’t know her yet, his hips starting to move as he thrusts into his own grip. He tells her how he’d imagined her storming over to yell at him and then fuck him up against the wall, and how he’d wondered what she looked like and how it’s not nearly as good as how amazing she actually looks in his bed. Jaime tells her the times he imagined her looking over and catching him like this, cock hard and aching for her, and how he thought about her giving in and doing the same, spreading her long legs in front of her window and fucking herself on her fingers.

Jaime is apparently still _very_ into that fantasy, because he barely gets the words out and then he’s coming all over his hand and slumping back onto the bed in a boneless heap.

Jaime is really going to miss this if Myrcella and Tommen move in, and he’s not sure he’s ready for it. That’s when he decides to book a trip to Maidenpool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast potatoes are essential for hangovers. I hate that I'm terrible at making them.


	49. Chapter Forty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is worried about discussing Tommen and Myrcella's living arrangements with Brienne.

Jaime hasn’t heard anything from his father since the New Year’s gala, and Brienne hasn’t sat him down and explained why all of this is too much for her and they have to break up. So Jaime is cautiously optimistic about her incredible, unheard-of ability to handle the worst things he can throw at her and somehow accept them.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t worried about the idea of adding two children to the mix, and he figures if things are going to crash and burn, at least he can sneak in a few days of nothing but each other before it all disappears.

Maidenpool is more touristy than Jaime expects, but still fun. He especially enjoys needling Brienne about her lack of romantic impulses.

Even if she does have a point about Florian and Jonquil’s shared suicide being rather unhealthy and tragic. 

Cersei loved Florian and Jonquil.

Jaime manages to sneak in the purchase of a delightfully tacky picture frame proclaiming them _Lovers in Maidenpool_ for the photo of them in front of Jonquin’s window. 

Plus a sex manual. Definitely a sex manual. Even if some of the positions look bafflingly uncomfortable. 

Jaime did _not_ realize, when he booked the trip, that the cabin is an _actual cabin_ , the kind without a heater (it does have indoor plumbing, at least) and just a large fireplace and a bed full of authentic Northern furs.

Jaime shivers underneath the covers, watching Brienne as she coaxes the flames, which have dwindled as they warmed themselves up in thoroughly enjoyable ways. Brienne is so competent, so steady as she rebuilds the fire, and Jaime feels heat building in his stomach that has nothing to do with the blaze crackling away when she’s done. 

Brienne has said she would like children, she’s told Jaime that, but she also said in the future. Not now, not today.

And she said she’d like to have children, not take in two already half-grown. 

Jaime knows he’s being too clingy, he’s bracing for Brienne to push him away, but he can’t stop reaching for her, touching her, trying to memorize every thing about her while he can. Jaime wishes he were a younger man, wishes he could have the stamina and recovery time he used to, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make Brienne feel good. He burrows under the covers when she comes back, settling between her legs and ignoring her telling him that he doesn’t need to do that, Jaime, she’s fine, wanting nothing more than to hear her and feel her and let her surround him until he doesn’t know anything else. 

Tyrion asked him, when he was booking the trip, if Brienne said she didn’t want him to take in the kids, what would Jaime do?

Jaime doesn’t know.

It all comes tumbling out when Jaime finds a secluded hot springs. It takes ages to convince Brienne to strip down and get in (less time, once there, to convince her to let him take her against the rocks, remembering at the very last second to pull out and not risk complicating this situation even more), but he finally does. She’s settled between his legs, warm and comforting as she traces the stars in the night sky, when Jaime finally tells her what Myrcella and Tommen have asked for. 

Jaime could weep for joy when Brienne takes everything in stride yet again. It makes it slightly easier to spend the days apart while everything gets settled.

There’s plenty to distract Jaime, gathering the two kids and their things, and good gods, how have two children managed to acquire so much _stuff_? Jaime doesn’t know where it all comes from, but Renly and Stannis and Bronn (on Tyrion’s behalf) lug boxes of things over and into the two former guest rooms. 

Tyrion also insists Jaime get the couch steam-cleaned.

Stannis nags Jaime about healthy eating so much that Jaime hires a chef to prep meals and stock the fridge, which is actually incredibly convenient, as it turns out. He should have done that years ago. 

He also stares at Brienne through his window, more than he can remember doing since they started dating, and sends so many text messages Myrcella starts calling him an honorary teenager and making fun of him at every available opportunity. 

She also teaches him how to use emojis, which Jaime delights in doing, much to Brienne’s annoyance. 

Still, it feels off and it isn’t until Brienne is curled up on the sofa while the children watch a movie and Brienne smacks his hand when he tries to get too touchy-feely that something feels like it clicks into place and lets Jaime breathe a bit easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is definitely conditioned to think any desire for affection is clingy.
> 
> Everyone is glad the couch got steam cleaned.


	50. Chapter Fifty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Living with kids isn't exactly what Jaime expected.

Living with children should come with a warning label. 

Jaime can deal with the fact that he now has a schedule that includes things like regular dinner times and homework. 

He can live with the way Tommen whines and dawdles every single time he’s asked to do something, even something he enjoys, just because Jaime is telling him to do it.

Jaime is less fond of the feeling of stepping on one of Myrcella’s Legos (the howl of pain wakes up Brienne, who leaps out of bed and doubles over with laughter at the sight of him hopping on one foot, glass of water spilled on the floor), but fine. It’s temporary. 

But Jaime is really, really not fond of his niece and nephew’s apparent inability to understand the concept of closed doors. 

Jaime barely pulls away from Brienne when he hears the sound of footsteps and he’s yanked the covers up by the time Tommen reaches the bed and leaps onto it, landing on Jaime’s legs.

Brienne slinks so low under the covers only her eyes and the tip of her nose are visible.

She’s glaring at Jaime and he realizes he probably should have warned her that sometimes Tommen wakes up early on Saturdays.

Tommen is chattering about cartoons and the park and can they go to the zoo? While Jaime sighs and tries not to dwell on what he’d been about to do when rudely interrupted. Myrcella appears a few moments later, slower and more cautious, perching on the bed next to Brienne. 

Myrcella decides they should go out to get pancakes for breakfast, and then Brienne can show her how to make a battery out of a potato, which is apparently a thing they’ve discussed. 

Brienne is still glaring, probably because Jaime had assured her, after a similar interruption in the middle of the night thanks to Tommen having a nightmare, that this kind of thing rarely happens. 

He may have been underplaying it. 

They do go out for pancakes, and Brienne insists on stopping to buy them both pajamas and a door lock.

Though neither of them can bring themselves to actually keep the door locked for long, not after they find Tommen curled up outside in the hallway and he tells them he had a bad dream but he couldn’t open the door when he wanted to find Jaime.

(Tommen stares blankly and then looks terrified when Jaime asks him why he didn’t knock, and Jaime doesn’t think he wants to know why.) 

Jaime is happy, he’s happy that he is getting to take care of Myrcella and Tommen, whatever their actual relationship winds up being, and he’s happy Brienne is so patient and kind about it, but he just somehow thought it would be easier. 

It doesn’t help that Tyrion has decided to to text him and gleefuly recount all the sex he and Shae (and sometimes Ros) are having, all over their apartment, all four weeks out of the month, now that Tyrion doesn’t have to be responsible for any small humans. 

Nor does it help that Jaime finds he really misses Brienne’s apartment, and stares longingly after her when she goes home a few nights every week. There’s no room to join her in a one bedroom, but Jaime looks around and feels like his place doesn’t have even a quarter of the joy hers does. Even with the new pictures he’s put on his dresser and the Lion from the hospital perched on a shelf in his bedroom, even with Tommen’s drawings stuck on the refrigerator (at Brienne’s insistence, because that is a thing families apparently do) and Myrcella’s latest science projects placed on the kitchen windowsill, it’s too much like the emptiness of Casterly Rock. 

Jaime wants Brienne to be here more, he wants all the little things that make her place feel like home here, but it feels like too much to ask for. Especially after everything she’s accepted from him and the seemingly endless kindness she exudes.

That doesn’t stop him from squirreling her forgotten clothes away in a drawer.

If he sometimes opens the drawer and just looks at them to remind himself she’s real, well, nobody needs to know that. 

Jaime knows he’s selfish and needy and clingy, and he’s trying to be better about it. He still wants to cling to Brienne and beg her to stay with him all the time.

Tyrion tells him it’s far too early to ask Brienne to move in with him, he’s being ridiculous. Shae doesn’t even have a toothbrush at Tyrion’s and the two of them have been hooking up for longer.

When Jaime points out Sansa and Margaery have already moved in together, Tyrion laughs and laughs before muttering something about U-Hauls. And then calls Jaime a male lesbian for the next few weeks. 

Jaime decides not to tell Tyrion about the box Aunt Genna gave him on the Long Night, or the way it’s carefully tucked away in a lockbox at the back of his closet. 

Still, Jaime is content in a way he’s never been before. Domesticity has always been a foreign concept, and Jaime has never bothered to imagine much about it. His life has always been him and Cersei, a secret to be hidden in dark shadows. If someone had pressed him to imagine a different relationship, what it would be like if Cersei wasn’t his sister, he would have imagined glamorous parties and fancy dinners and hot, risky sex.

He definitely wouldn’t have imagined eating dinner at a table in his kitchen while Myrcella quizzes Brienne about computer programming or sitting with Tommen and a picture book and trying to help him along. Jaime sometimes has nearly as much trouble, if he’s tired or stressed, but Brienne looks so disappointed if he tries to get Tommen to ask her instead, so he powers through. Jaime wouldn’t imagine lying in bed on weekend mornings while kids snuggle with the sound of cartoons coming from the living room. 

Jaime is extremely gratified to realize that at least all of the things he didn’t expect still come with a surprisingly significant amount of hot, if not overly loud, sex. 

Jaime really misses Brienne being so loud.

Still, it’s a life he never would have imagined, and he should have realized it can’t last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is full on domestic fluff.


	51. Chapter Fifty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei is supposed to be in an institution, not Jaime's apartment.

The door clicks open and Jaime looks up to see what Brienne forgot, it’s too soon for her run to be over, and then it’s like fog comes over everything.

Cersei isn’t supposed to be here, she’s not supposed to be anywhere but a secure institution. She’s definitely not supposed to be in Jaime’s living room, hair down, no make up and still as beautiful as she always has been. 

Tommen isn’t supposed to start coming down the hallway and see his mother, then drop his stuffed cat and scream.

Myrcella isn’t supposed to hear her brother and drag him into Jaime’s room, slamming the door behind them. Jaime hears the lock being thrown, surprisingly loud given the buzzing in his ears. 

Cersei screams, Cersei rages, Cersei tells him this is all his fault and all his doing. Jaime wants to shout back, he wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her but he can’t. Because it is his fault. 

Jaime should have put a stop to things years ago. Jaime should have seen the truth about Cersei, seen the lying and the manipulation and the cruelty that’s always been there, sliding under the beauty of her skin. Tyrion saw it. Tyrion tried to make Jaime see it.

Jaime shouldn’t have let Cersei’s ideas go so far, her conviction that they are the royal Lannisters from years past, that this is their destiny. Jaime never should have believed it too, never should have thought their love was written in the arc of history. He never should have believed it was right, it was okay, they were one person in two bodies so it wasn’t a sin. 

Jaime can’t deny the accusations Cersei hurls at him like weapons. He _did_ abandon her. He _did_ ignore her pleas for help. He _did_ stand aside while Robert whored and drank his way through King’s Landing. He _did_ let her go to an institution instead of declaring her innocence and leaping to her defense. 

Jaime doesn’t regret walking away but he did everything she says. 

Then Brienne is there, and at first it’s like a breath of fresh air, there’s goodness around Brienne like an aura and Jaime sucks it in like a drowning man. 

But then Cersei turns on Brienne, and that’s what snaps Jaime out of his stupor. Brienne has heard so many terrible things and she’s done nothing to Cersei. 

Then Cersei mentions the children and panic starts clawing its way up Jaime’s throat. Tommen screamed when he saw Cersei, both kids were like tiny robots when everything first happened, and Jaime can’t let that happen again. He _can’t_. 

Blood is running down Jaime’s cheek and he’s being turned inside out, but he can’t let Cersei get her claws into anyone else, he can’t let her threaten and blackmail. He has nothing to hide from Brienne anymore, nothing, but he never wanted her to see him like this. He never wanted Brienne in the same building as Cersei, let alone the same room. 

Brienne saves him yet again and Cersei is gone and Jaime is sinking to the floor and then Brienne is there, soft and warm and perfect, and then she’s gone again. There’s people, oh gods, he’s on the floor shaking like some kind of child and people are there, there’s noise and confusion and Jaime only dimly registers Renly and Loras hustling Myrcella and Tommen away, overly loud and cheerful with promises of fun. 

It’s cold, it’s so cold, and Brienne has an armful of clothes and she’s going _away_. Tyrion is there somehow, Tyrion looking worried and serious like Jaime has never seen. And Brienne is leaving, the door closing behind her, and then Jaime is breaking into heaving sobs. 

He knew this day was coming, he’s known he’s not worthy, he knows Brienne deserves better, but Jaime thought he’d have longer. He thought he’d get to say goodbye, tell her he loves her, would do anything for her, tear himself apart, he thought that would be the last thing she’d hear from him, not Cersei’s cutting words and insults. 

Jaime doesn’t know how long he cries, he should be ashamed of himself for being so weak, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore because the best thing he’s ever had in his life has just walked out the door. 

When he finally stops, not because he’s feeling any better but because his body seems to have run out of tears, Tyrion is on the floor with him. Still staring at Jaime. 

Bronn is nowhere to be seen, but he’s probably lurking discreetly somewhere, and there are bottles of the wine Jaime knows is Tyrion’s favorite “fuck everything” variety abandoned on the coffee table. That’s how Jaime knows it’s bad, if Tyrion isn’t even drinking. 

“How?” is all Jaime can say at first.

Tyrion shrugs helplessly.

“She’s supposed to be on lockdown,” he says. “I don’t know — the letters — I thought they’d keep her even more restricted.” 

Tyrion seems to be waiting for something but Jaime doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do or say here.

“What did she _say_ to you?” Tyrion finally asks. 

Jaime’s head hits the window with a dull thud when he leans back.

The window into Brienne’s office. Where he’s going to see her, day after day, beautiful and strong and good and just out of reach. 

“It’s my fault,” Jaime says dully. “I didn’t save her. I didn’t protect her. I didn’t defend her.” 

“It’s not,” Tyrion says. He’s more emotional about it than Jaime expects. “You didn’t make her do the things she’s done.”

“I went along with her,” Jaime says. “For so long. I just went along with what she said. She’s the smart twin and I was meant to take care of her and I let her expect it and then…”

“She tried to _have you killed_ ,” Tyrion says. 

“Because I left.” 

“Jaime. This is _not your fault_.”

“I was half of it,” Jaime says. “Maybe if I hadn’t … maybe she wouldn’t have gotten so …”

Another sob tears its way out of him. 

“And now Brienne is gone too,” he says. 

“She said she’s coming back.” Tyrion doesn’t sound like he believes it any more than Jaime does. 

“She shouldn’t,” Jaime says. “I told her before, but she didn’t see it. She couldn’t understand it. Cersei’s hateful and so am I. Brienne deserves better.” 

Jaime has tried so hard to be the kind of man Brienne could deserve, but Cersei’s not wrong when she reminds him of all the things they’ve done. That’s who he is too. Just a worthless old man without a hand and without honor.

He should have remembered that before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one hurt to write.


	52. Chapter Fifty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

Jaime shouldn't be surprised to get a call from Brienne, her voice thick and raspy like his, like she’s been crying too. Probably for being stupid enough to give any part of herself to Jaime, letting him defile her with his sins. 

She’s too good of a person to just walk away. She’ll want to tell him, let him know she’s ending it, because that’s what decent people do. She even meets him in person, because of course Brienne wouldn’t leave with just a phone call.

Jaime tries to anticipate it, tries to keep from having to hear her say the words. He wants to remember Brienne’s voice saying she loves him, she wants him, not telling him he’s disgusting, she never should have gone near him, it’s over. 

But Brienne seems to be having a different conversation, seems to be worried that Cersei has changed how Jaime sees Brienne. Like he’s somehow been blind to what she looks like this whole time and Cersei pulled the blindfold off. Jaime thought Brienne understood by now, that whatever twisted, warped love he and Cersei had was long over, that he sees Brienne and wants her anyway.

Jaime tries to explain it, tries to make her see how stupidly wrapped up he and Cersei are, that he let himself be used by his sister. 

Jaime is still weak, though, because he can’t push Brienne away when she somehow forgives his past yet again. He’s always needed too much, Cersei said, and he can’t refuse it when Brienne is offering. Jaime tells her what he wants, how much, how he needs her with him, her space, he wants her there all the time. 

He’s clinging to her like a koala, and he tries to back off from it, tries to give her the space to refuse, but he just wants so much. He wants to be sure she’s not leaving him, she’s not going to leave him to face the cold and emptiness like she did the day before.

Jaime knows he’s being unfair, because Brienne’s response was perfectly reasonable, but he’s greedily grasping at whatever he can get while he can.

Brienne must be annoyed by it all, but she lets him. She comes back to his apartment, she lets him cling to her in his sleep, lets Tommen and Myrcella cram into the bed with them because they’re having nightmares too.

Tommen breaks down screaming and crying just thinking about going back home and Jaime wonders how bad it was there. What didn’t he see? What didn’t he know?

Brienne brings her things over, willingly this time, not Jaime hoarding away forgotten items. Jaime finds it far more comforting than he should, really, just seeing her framed photos or ridiculous pink blanket in front of him. 

Especially when she’s not there, because as Brienne points out, she does have to work and they all have lives and can’t actually lock themselves away from the world. Jaime looks over at her office, sometimes, and it doesn’t seem real that she’s there, that she’s still putting up with him. 

Brienne also suggests Jaime find a therapist, both for himself and for the kids, and Jaime has to admit it’s a good idea. 

Tywin would be livid at the thought, so Jaime doesn’t tell him. 

He half expects the therapist to kick him out on the first visit, to tell Jaime he’s far too much of a mess to be salvaged, but Dr. Seaworth just raises his eyebrows and pulls out a notepad, then tells Jaime it sounds like he’s going to have a lot to talk about. 

Jaime still feels guilty and he can’t quite bring himself to touch Brienne again. Even though he misses her so much it aches. Even when she’s right there beside him.

Jaime feels ill at the thought of tarnishing her with his hands, with all the things he’s done.

Surprisingly that’s what Dr. Seaworth decides to tackle first, not the tangled mess of Jaime’s past.

Jaime can’t say he minds too much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally therapy!


	53. Chapter Fifty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and the kids try to heal from everything Cersei did.

Seaworth can’t wave his psychiatry degree and fix Jaime, and he’s pretty blunt in telling Jaime it’s going to take a long time to sift through everything. 

“You didn’t get here in a day,” Seaworth says, placidly regarding Jaime over his notepad. “You won’t get out of it in a day either.”

Still, Jaime starts to feel more normal again. Or not normal, because his normal is a twisted mess, but … better. He starts to feel like he can reach for Brienne and not feel guilt and shame about damaging her. Surprisingly, Brienne seems to be almost grateful for it, to be as happy as Jaime. 

Even when Jaime is an emotional mess the first time they have sex after everything. He’s embarrassed, really, how much he’s missed her, how much he can’t stop telling her that, how much he needs to tell her he loves her, to pour his messy feelings all over everything. 

Still, Maiden’s Day is a _very_ good day and Jaime almost feels like himself again for most of it, especially with Brienne in his arms. Especially when he thinks about how lucky he is to have her. 

They’re both uncertain at first, Brienne trying to hide herself with her hands in a way that makes Jaime’s heart feel like it’s cracking in two. He tries to put all the things he can’t figure out how to say into touching her, kissing her, trying to show her how much he wants her.

Brienne starts to turn away when Jaime undresses hert, and Jaime remembers an earlier conversation, remembers Brienne saying her childhood nanny had said Brienne’s best hope would be a husband who would take her from behind, in the dark, out of obligation. 

Obligation is the last thing Jaime feels, and he won’t allow it, pulls Brienne closer to them, face to face, trying to touch her everywhere at once. Being inside Brienne again is so overwhelming he has to stop for a minute, pressing his forehead to hers and blinking back tears. Brienne grips his good hand with hers, strokes her other hand down his back while he tries to pull himself together.

Jaime can’t stop the words from spilling out of him, all the love he has for Brienne, how miraculous and wonderful she is. He begs her not to look away when she tries, the compliments too much. Jaime is always too much, he knows, but Brienne gives him what he needs like always, eyes locked with his as the pleasure builds between them. It’s slow and sweet, a release that doesn’t explode but slowly unspools until they’re both laying sated and breathless on the bed. 

Seaworth hears Jaime talk about Tommen and Myrcella and recommends a therapist who specializes in children. He says she’s very good, and the first time Jaime meets her he has to stop himself from suggesting that Dr. Karstark is good with children _because she still is one_. Apparently she’s older (barely) than she looks and Tommen and Myrcella seem happier and say they like talking to her, so Jaime bites back his questions about her qualifications and experience. 

Jaime finally asks Brienne if he’s bothering her, how much he wants to touch her and fuck her and hold her, and she stares at him like he’s speaking High Valyrian. 

“I know I’m too needy,” he says. “Too much.” 

Brienne can’t quite look at him when she admits that she likes how much he wants her. 

“I never thought anyone would,” she tells him, as matter of factly as if she were telling him the weather forecast. “Not for real.” 

Jaime wants to ask what she means by that, but he also wants to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she understands just how much he wants her. The latter idea seems like much more fun, and so that’s what he does. 

They make out on the couch like teenagers, and Jaime tries to tell Brienne with every kiss, how much he wants her and loves her. He doesn’t know how she can still doubt it, but he also doesn’t mind showing her again and again. 

Jaime is also glad that Brienne doesn’t seem to think he’s clingy, seems baffled by his comments when Jaime follows Seaworth’s advice and brings it up instead of worrying quietly. Especially when Tywin calls and tells them Cersei and Joffrey will be going on trial.

Apparently Cersei’s little escape act had taken enough planning to convince the judge and mental health experts that she understands her actions well enough to stand trial. The defense attorneys have been filing as many motions to delay it as they can, but the judge is determined to move things along.

Frankly, Jaime is surprised it’s been delayed this long. Robert wasn’t exactly low-profile and his position in the Dragonsmoot has remained unfilled thanks to all the drama. Technically it should pass to Joffrey, but it can’t if he’s found guilty. Then it should go to Tommen, but Stannis and Renly have both been requesting to take it over, at least until whichever child comes of age.

Or because they suspect Joffrey and Tommen _aren’t_ Robert’s children, Jaime isn’t sure. 

And that’s not even taking into account Robert’s numerous bastards, one of the most poorly kept secrets in King’s Landing. Some of them are older than Joffrey, which shouldn’t matter since they’re not legitimized. Except for political commentators who, with Joffrey in jail, are digging up old precedent for putting bastards in the line of succession. 

Jaime doesn’t give a flying fuck whom the seat goes to, he just wishes somebody would decide already. 

Brienne remains steady and calm when Jaime tells her. She holds him and tells him she’s not going away, she’s not going to leave him, he’s told her all his secrets and she’s still here. 

Jaime tells her again how he loves her, lets his hands run all over her body like he can press his feelings into her skin, tries not to wonder how his life might be if he’d met Brienne when he was younger, if he could have seen then what kind of person he could be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime thinks showing love is needy and Brienne thinks nobody would love her so together they're a great pair, aren't they?


	54. Chapter Fifty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even life as a Lannister hasn't prepared Jaime for the trial.

Nothing, not even living his entire life in the spotlight that comes from being a Lannister, prepares Jaime for the start of the trials.

The papers, many of whom have been under his father’s thumb for years (willingly or not), have a field day. Jaime is incredibly grateful that school is already finished for the year because there’s no way in hell he’d take Myrcella and Tommen out in public during this.

Brienne gets ambushed by the media on day one, when they’ve lined the streets in wait. They don’t know her then, at least, and just assume she’s a resident of the building they can press for details. It’s still terrible, and her voice is shaking when she calls Jaime from her office. 

And she was only outside long enough to walk down the block and cross the street.

By noon, someone has figured out her identity, thanks to public photos from the New Year’s gala. Tyrion tells Jaime not to look at the publicity, but of course he does anyway.

The comments online are as bad as the ones from Cersei, or worse. Someone even finds old yearbook and newspaper photos from Brienne’s sports days, and while Jaime finds the braces-wearing, gangly teenager kind of charming, that opinion is not shared. 

Tyrion promises to look into what they can do, but there’s a lot of leeway when it comes to publicly available information.

Jaime mostly follows the trial online, because he doesn’t want to risk Tommen or Myrcella overhearing the news. The press are taking great joy in breaking down the city’s theory of the crime from the prosecutor's opening arguments. 

The theory is that Cersei decided to rid herself of Robert, for whatever reason, and convinced Joffrey to help her. She plied her husband with alcohol before a father-son bonding trip, which she encouraged. Then sent Joffrey and Robert off with guns, ostensibly to hunt, but really to let Joffrey shoot Robert and claim it was an accident. 

It might have worked, the attorney suggests, because Robert had been found dressed in a tan jacket and pants, if investigators had not located Robert’s bright orange hunting vest, complete with bloody bullet hole, and a stash of liquor bottles buried not far from the crime scene.

All things considered, Jaime thinks the theory is pretty reasonable.

Brienne goes back to her apartment, and Jaime understands, they haven’t found her there yet, but it hurts. All he wants to do is hold her and bury himself in her until he forgets anything else exists. 

Then he gets an email from an unknown address with links to a news story about Brienne. Jaime actually throws up after reading it, after hearing what her classmates tried to do to her. He hates that she hasn’t told him herself, hates that he’s reading scathing comments about how stupid she was to believe anyone would want her and how ugly she is and how desperate Jaime must be.

Jaime is sick again when he remembers how he acted when they first met, how her coworkers were betting on her again, how she must have thought he had a hidden motive too. 

Jaime checks seven news outlets and only one actually reports the incident as a crime instead of burying it in paragraphs of speculation on how Brienne is blackmailing him.

He has Tyrion send the reporter an anonymous bouquet and a large bottle of scotch. 

That’s the same day Cersei has a breakdown on the witness stand and starts screaming about Robert’s whores and how he was corrupting her precious children.

Jaime thinks that’s pretty hypocritical considering some of the things Tommen and Myrcella have told Dr. Karstark. Most of which she has firmly labeled as neglect or abuse. 

Jaime doesn’t feel guilty about keeping that from the prosecutor’s office, because the last thing either child needs is to be dragged up on a witness stand in this media circus.

He does feel guilty when the press find out where Brienne lives and she has to flee to Sansa and Margaery’s place. 

Myrcella steals Jaime’s phone and looks up the news the day it breaks that Joffrey has been running his mouth in prison and bragging about his crimes. Including a confession, in graphic detail, of all the ways he would have liked to torture his father.

The fact that Myrcella doesn’t bat an eye makes Jaime’s heart skip a beat.

He doesn’t know exactly what Joffrey did to his siblings, but he and Dr. Karstark suspect it wasn’t good. 

Then Cersei’s lawyer provides lists of Robert’s bastards, all sixteen of them, including Gendry Waters. Well, at least Jaime knows one of Robert’s spawn managed to become a decent human being, against all odds. 

Then the press find out about Joffrey’s nannies. 

Jaime remembers when Sansa Stark got attacked, but it’s hard to put the photos of bruises and bloody cuts next to the sweet and gentle young woman he knows. He calls Sansa to apologize, and she tells him she and Margaery are safe at the Tyrell’s, behind Olenna’s locked gates. 

She asks about Brienne and Jaime doesn’t know what to say, because he doesn’t have any idea how to handle this either. 

Myrcella takes his phone again, and she does cry when she sees the pictures of Jeyne Poole and the recovered skeleton. 

“Jeyne was nice,” Myrcella said 

“Was she the one that played with us?” Tommen asks. Myrcella nods.

“And she tried to stop Joffrey from hitting me,” she says. 

Brienne shows up at Jaime’s door and holds onto him just as fiercely as he’s holding onto her. 

“There’s cameras either way,” she tells him, burying her face in his hair. “I’d rather be with you.” 

Jaime phones Tyrion in a rage when the barista from the local coffee shop sells her story of eavesdropping to a major paper and suddenly the entire world knows about him and Cersei, about the kids. It makes the comments about Brienne even worse. The internet seems to be split between complete disbelief that Jaime could go from someone who looks like Cersei to someone who looks like Brienne and conviction that Brienne has been blackmailing Jaime with this, using it to get his body and his money. 

Jaime tries to joke about it, tells Brienne he’s happy to give her his body for nothing, but it falls flat and Brienne curls in on herself like she did when they first started getting together. 

Renly tells them both to stop reading the comments, but somehow neither of them can resist. 

Loras calls it masochism. 

Someone finds a copy of Robert’s will, which makes it very clear he had suspicions about Cersei and the kids. It also directs his money to blood heirs, which is good news for Gendry and his other surprise offspring, but probably not so great for Ned Stark, who is suddenly faced with the possibility of being given guardianship of children he never knew existed. 

Stannis calls and demands a DNA test for the “so-called Baratheon siblings” and Jaime shouts at him for thirty minutes. He had these kids in his house, he spent time with them; is Stannis going to hurt them more by writing them off because they don’t share blood, even though Robert raised them? 

He’d probably keep shouting, but Brienne reminds him that the kids in question can probably hear him and don’t need to know all the details. 

The day some asshole photographer manages to get pictures of Tommen and Myrcella sleeping in their beds, which get published with headlines like “Little Lions: All Lannister,” is the closest Jaime comes to losing it. 

He’s angry and raging and he can’t stop even when he sees Tommen flinching as he shouts on the phone and sees Myrcella put in a Disney movie and crank the volume way up while rocking Tommen in her lap like she’s done this hundreds of times before. 

Brienne tells him to pack their bags. She refuses to say anymore, in part because, Jaime is pretty convinced, someone has managed to get very sensitive mics close enough to pick up conversations from his apartment, and swears she’s going to try to make things easier. 

They’re about to board a boat that looks like it’s barely sea-worthy and the last thing a Lannister would ever set foot on when Jaime’s phone rings. 

“I’m the warden at the Black Cells,” a man says, with the tired drone of a bureaucrat. “I regret to inform you that your … nephew has been killed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's love when even awkward teen photos are charming. 
> 
> Alcohol is a great idea when thanking your friendly neighborhood reporter. Heavens knows we need it to get through our jobs.
> 
> Stannis is absolutely going to be the toughest family member to deal with in the aftermath.


	55. Chapter Fifty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not how Jaime imagined seeing Tarth for the first time.

Jaime has had a lot of ideas about how he might visit Tarth and meet Briene’s father. Most of them involve vacations and laughter and fun. Several involve a certain Valyrian steel ring on Brienne’s left hand. 

None of them involved sneaking off a decrepit fishing boat (which is still somehow _in use_ , Jaime doesn’t understand how _at all_ ) and following a grizzled old sailor off some shady looking docks. While his two probable children skip merrily ahead. 

Honestly, Jaime’s a little surprised they got Myrcella off the ship and she didn’t just try to pitch a tent in the engine room. 

Brienne’s father is tall. Very tall. Intimidatingly tall, especially when he’s gripping Jaime’s hand and looming over him while reminding Jaime how very special and treasured Brienne is. But Brienne’s father melts when he sees Tommen and Myrcella, almost as much as when he sees Brienne. 

Jaime still feels shell-shocked as he walks into the house, which immediately tells him where Brienne got her ability to make an apartment feel like home. It’s full of fascinating clutter, and the kids clamber over to a table that’s half-covered with papers and tools while Selwyn cooks pancakes, flipping them high in the air with flourish. Jaime’s glad he doesn’t have to do much to carry a conversation, especially when Tommen blurts out the story of Joffrey killing his cat.

How much of a monster was Cersei’s oldest son?

His oldest son.

Their oldest son.

Myrcella and Tommen are helping Jorgen do dishes, something Jaime thinks they’ve never done in their entire life, when Selwyn claps a hand on his shoulder. Jaime tries not to wince.

“You look like you could use a break,” he says. “Both of you.” 

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Brienne says. “Has anyone come here? Any press?”

“Nah,” Selwyn says. “Highlight of Alys’ year though, all that sitting by the window finally coming in useful. She’s on lookout, hasn’t seen a soul.”

“Oh gods,” Brienne says. “She’s talking about the war again, isn’t she?” 

“Reliving her youth,” Selwyn says. 

Brienne groans. 

“I’ll take the kids,” Selwyn says. “We can go exploring, get their feet wet. You know what the best cure for anything is?”

Jaime shakes his head, because Selwyn is looking at him like he expects an answer. 

“Salt water,” Sewlyn says. Brienne chimes in as he continues. “Tears, sweat or the sea.” 

Brienne looks like this is all stuff she’s heard a million times, which Jaime supposes is the way with parents, but this is far more interesting than anything Tywin repeats. He wants to ask about it, but his eyes are already drooping as Selwyn collects both children and heads out, starting to belt out a sea shanty as he goes. 

Jaime barely makes it to the sofa, following behind Brienne like a puppy, before he passes out.

When Jaime wakes up, the house is still quiet and still, but the light is stronger coming through the windows. Afternoon, maybe. Brienne is curled up on an armchair nearby, her hair a mess like she’s been playing with it, the way she does when she’s trying to focus on something, a thick book open on her lap. 

She looks amazing, so peaceful and relaxed in a way Jaime doesn’t think he’s ever seen in King’s Landing.

He wonders how much houses cost on Tarth. 

“How long was I asleep?” 

“A couple hours,” Brienne says. 

Jaime feels more rested than he has in weeks. 

“So,” he says, hauling himself off the couch. “You gonna give me the grand tour?”

“Of what?” Brienne laughs.

“Your house!” Jaime tugs her up off the chair. “Show me the world that shaped Brienne Tarth.”

It really is a nice house, very cozy, but Jaime is only halfway paying attention. It’s not _entirely_ his fault, Brienne is wearing worn jeans that are very distracting, particularly in the way they hug her ass, but also it’s that there’s really only one room Jaime cares about. 

Brienne’s room is somehow nothing like he pictured and everything like he pictured at the same time. There are so many girly touches, just like Brienen’s house. It’s cute that she tries to hide that side of herself, but Jaime also wishes she wouldn't, because he doesn’t think he’ll like the reasons for it if he ever finds them out. 

It’s not like Jaime hasn’t fucked in a teenage bedroom. He fucked in his childhood room, a lot, when he was actually living there, but laying on Brienne’s cheerful white bed, looking over at the old pictures clipped from magazines and put on the wall, it feels somehow different.

Especially how red she turns when he teases her about it, jokes about what prom would have been like if they’d gone together.

Jaime would give anything to be able to go back in time and do something like that, something right and innocent (well, mostly) and normal. 

That’s not possible.

What is possible, though, is to tug Brienne closer, and kiss her until she’s sighing and relaxed, roll them over so he’s propped up next to her, his useless, handless arm at least steady enough for that. 

“What did you think about then?” 

The fact that Brienne still blushes when Jaime says things like that is never, ever going to get old.

“I don’t know,” Brienne says. 

“Yes you do.” Jaime slides his hand under the hem of her shirt, not groping, just resting it on the flat plane of her abs. “Come on, just because you weren’t doing anything doesn’t mean you weren’t a horny teenager.”

“Jaime!” 

“What? We all were.” Jaime lets his fingers play over her skin, gentle, barely touching. He can feel Brienne breathing a little faster, the little twitches of her muscles that follow his touch. 

“It wasn’t anything specific,” Brienne says. “I just. I don’t know. I wanted someone who would look at me like …. Like in the movies.” 

“Oh?” Jaime thinks he knows what she’s talking about, but he’d rather hear her explain. 

Brienne turns her face to kiss him, but he pulls just out of reach, no letting her distract him. 

“Like the end of every movie where the couple just – just looks at each other and it’s like he can’t not kiss her. Like he needs to.” 

Jaime does lean forward and kiss Brienne, deep and slow and hot. 

“That’s how I feel about you all the time,” he tells her. He kisses her again before she can start arguing, trying to put that feeling into it, trying to show Brienne how much he needs her.

Though his cock poking into her side is probably a good indication as well. 

“Did you ever think about what happens after the kiss?” Jaime asks. He lets his hand drift upwards, inching closer to Brienne’s breasts.

She’s starting to shift under his touch impatiently.

“Yes,” Brienne says, and Jaime kisses her again, running his hand over her breasts, feeling the way she arches and tries to follow when he pulls it away. Jaime tugs at her shirt until she takes it off, tossing it away. 

“Did you touch yourself?”

Brienne whimpers when he pulls away again.

“Yes,” she says. Jaime grins and pinches at her nipples, loving the way Brienne wiggles and gasps. She’s still so responsive, even after all the times they’ve been together, so eager for his touch. 

“Show me,” Jaime says and he’s not surprised when Brienne’s first reaction is to bury her face in his shoulder, protesting that she can’t.

‘I showed you,” Jaime reminds her. He moves to suck on her earlobe, trace a path down her neck with his tongue. “Didn’t you like it?”

“Yes, but that’s _different_ ,” Brienne manages to get out, in between the delicious noises she’s making as Jaime gently strokes his fingers along her skin. 

“It’s not.” Jaime slides his hand down, resting just above the waistband of Brienne’s jeans. “I like seeing you. I love seeing you like this.” 

Brienne kisses him again, more desperately this time. Jaime nips at her lower lip as they break apart. 

“Please?” he asks. 

Brienne finally nods, unbuttoning her jeans and sliding them down. Jaime really can imagine her as a teenager like this, here in this sweet, pretty room, dreaming of someone touching her like this. 

“I can just picture you here,” he whispers in her ear, watching as Brienne kicks her underwear off and slides her hand down, smoothing over the blond curls. “You wondered what it would be like, didn’t you? Laid here dreaming about it, letting someone sneak into your bed.”

Brienne whimpers as she starts stroking herself gently, slowly. More slowly than Jaime does, almost delicate as her fingers slide through her folds. Jaime can see the wetness glistening on them, see the pink flesh he knows is so sweet. 

“Am I as good as you imagined?” Jaime watches the way her hips twitch at that. “Think about what teenage Brienne would say, if she knew we’d end up together.”

That gets a very interesting reaction, Brienne’s fingers slipping urgently to rub at herself, a broken noise coming from her throat. Her eyes are still squeezed shut, but Jaime keeps whispering in her ear. Tells her how much he likes seeing her, how gorgeous she looks like this, all spread out and open for him, how fucking lucky he is that he gets to touch her, he gets to be the one who gets to see what she looks like when she’s shaking apart. 

It feels so safe here, in this room, almost like Jaime could go back in time and the two of them could be here, innocent and free with no baggage, no pasts weighing them down. The way Brienne deserves. 

Then Brienne is crying out into his shoulder, hips rolling gently. 

Her eyes open, finally, staring at Jaime. 

“It’s better when it’s you,” she says. “More than I could have imagined.”

Jaime can’t stop himself from grabbing her and kissing her again then, frantically ripping at his own clothes and pulling her on top of him. He won’t let Brienne flip them over, guiding her over until she’s rocking back onto his cock. 

“I never want to leave this bed,” Jaime gasps, thrusting up into her while Brienne starts rolling her hips, figuring out what works. It’s so good, so right to be with Brienne, watching sweat drip down her chest as she grinds against him. Feeling the tight squeeze of her around him, to lose himself in Brienne and forget everything else in the world until they’re both spent, Brienne collapsed on top of him, both of them breathing heavily. 

Jaime drifts in and out of sleep after that, just enjoying the feel of being trapped under Brienne’s body, the feel of her muscled back under his palm. He pulls her back every time she tries to move, mumbling reassurances he hopes are at least kind of coherent. 

They only get up when Brienne hears the door opening and scrambles to her feet, getting dressed and shoving clothes at Jaime, like her father isn’t going to guess what they’ve been doing while left alone for several hours.

It’s cute, though, just like the way Brienne blushes brightly anytime Jaime does something as simple as take her hand or kiss her chastely (okay, mostly chastely) in front of her father or Jorgen or anyone else she knows. 

“It’s my father,” she tries to explain, when Jaime teases her about it. “It’s not – I’ve never had anyone to introduce him to.”

That only makes Jaime even more determined to find ways to show affection, wrapping his arms around Brienne as much as possible, cuddling next to her on the couch when the neighbors stop by for a casual visit and spend the time staring Jaime down. 

At first Jaime worries it’s about the news stories, that this is going to get back to the press, but it’s clear very quickly that everyone is just worried about how he’s treating Brienne. They spend a lot of time at the house, at first. Tommen is excited to play with his new kittens, who seem delighted to try to destroy as much of Selwyn’s furniture as possible with their tiny, razor-sharp claws. Myrcella is entranced by Alys, the neighbor who stops by to update Selwyn and Brienne on the comings and goings of what seems to Jaime like the entire island. 

Alys lived in Mereen before, when she was young, and she was there during one of the rebellions. Alys tells Myrcella about working for the resistance organization as a girl, smuggling information in her dolls and hiding rebels in compartments built into the walls of her family’s home. Brienne has clearly heard all the stories before, but smiles and nods anyway, like it's still fascinating. 

Jaime has to ask Tyrion to keep his texts about the trial to once a day, because he can’t deal with the information coming in as every development breaks. Joffrey was killed by another inmate. Nobody knows why, if it was a fight or deliberate. The police don’t seem to care about finding out. 

The only thing Jaime can find himself to regret about it is that it means they won’t be able to interrogate Joffrey about what happened to Jeyne Poole. Cersei is charged with being an accessory but Jaime is pretty sure it’s Joffrey who killed the girl. 

Once it’s clear the press isn’t going to find them on Tarth, they start going out. They spend time at the beaches, at abandoned marble mines, clambering down the uneven walls and brushing fingers across the lower quality stone left behind. 

The day after Jaime gets a call confirming Myrcella and Tommen (and Joffrey) are his children, Brienne takes them all to a treehouse built into the woods halfway up a mountain. It’s big enough for all of them to sleep in, if they don’t mind being a little close. 

“You built this, didn’t you?” Jaime asks.

Brienne shakes her head. “My father.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Myrcella asks. “If you and mom – I mean, isn’t it dangerous?”

“It is,” Jaime says. “But you’re both fine.” 

“They say that’s why Aerys Targryen was crazy,” Myrcella says. “Genetics. Because they kept having brothers and sisters get married.” 

“The Targaryens intermarried for generations,” Brienne explains. “Just one, just your parents, it’s not enough that you should worry.”

“Is that why Joffrey was the way he was?” Tommen asks. 

“I don’t think anyone knows why Joffrey was like that,” Jaime finally says. “Sometimes people are just … just not quite right.” 

“People are going to think we’re freaks,” Myrcella says glumly. 

“They might,” Brienne says. “People can be cruel. But it isn’t anything you did.”

Jaime can’t help but flinch at that, a reminder that two innocent kids are going to be the ones paying the price for his mistakes. 

“You’ll find people who understand that,” Brienne continues. “Who see who you are, inside, and who love you for it.” 

She’s looking at Jaime when she says it, and he has a feeling she’s not just talking about Myrcella and Tommen. It’s nice that night, the wind howling around the walls as they sleep. Waking up to birds perching everywhere on the treehouse, singing and chirping as the sun comes up.

Jaime doesn’t ever want to leave Tarth, he’d be perfectly happy to start picking through real estate ads, but eventually the trial ends.

Cersei is found guilty, and something in Jaime’s stomach unclenches when he realizes she’s going to be in jail for the rest of both of their lives. 

Selywn finds him later, out behind the house, Jaime’s eyes red from crying. 

“You’ve got quite a past,” Selwyn says, quietly handing Jaime a bottle of beer. 

Jaime braces himself. He’s been expecting Selwyn to tell him to get lost since they arrived on Tarth, no matter how often Brienne has reassured him. 

‘Yes, sir,” he says. 

“Not exactly what a man would hope for when it comes to his daughter,” Selwyn says. “The things you’ve done. Well, I expect you know how bad they are.”

Jaime hangs his head. “I do.”

“My daughter stays with you, you know what people will say, don’t you?” Selwyn doesn’t give Jaime a chance to respond. “She’s taking on two kids that aren’t hers, and a man with a reputation like yours. They’re going to say worse than they already have. That she’s desperate. She’s so ugly the only man who will have her is one who used to sleep with his own sister.”

Selwyn doesn’t say it with any particular malice, but the brisk, factual tone almost makes it worse. 

“That’s not it,” Jaime says. “I love Brienne. I wouldn’t have anyone in the world but her. I’m not – she’s not a last resort.” 

“Other people won’t see it that way.”

“Well, fuck other people then,” Jaime says, forgetting that he’s supposed to be calm and polite because this is his girlfriend’s father. “They don’t see her. They don’t know how good she is, how kind, how amazingly loving.”

“So you like her for her personality,” Selwyn says.

It feels like a trick question. Jaime’s pretty sure you aren’t supposed to tell your girlfriend’s father how amazingly sexy you think said girlfriend is, how you would happily spend days just fucking her until neither of you can move and then somehow keep going. But Jaime really resents the implication in Selwyn’s tone. 

“If you’re asking if I find your daughter attractive, I do,” Jaime says. “Very, very attractive.”

He probably shouldn’t mention the numerous and creative ways he’s tried to show Brienne, mostly involving dragging her to every place on Tarth that gives her bad memories and trying to replace those memories with orgasms. 

“She’s been hurt a lot,” Selwyn says. “Are you going to be one of the men that does that?”

“I will cut off my remaining hand before I hurt Brienne,” Jaime says. 

Selwyn nods at him, then disappears, leaving Jaime behind with his beer and his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In general, I don't really get the whole like, weird idealizing of teenagers but I think for Jaime this is all tied up in it being before all of the bad choices he made, rather than inherent sexiness of the teen years. Before he and Cersei were so deeply involved, before Brienne had been hurt so badly and convinced nobody would love her.
> 
> Selwyn loves Brienne with all his heart, but he's not ignorant about how the world sees her and what people are going to say.


	56. Chapter Fifty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime wastes no time getting Brienne moved in, once she's agreed to live with him.

Jaime wastes no time getting the apartment ready for Brienne to move in. Having the living room painted a soothing sage green does make a huge difference. Both in how the room feels and how he doesn’t have so many memories of bleeding out on the polished floor. Jaime can’t wait until she’s there, every day, with him. 

It’s even worth the phone call from Tywin, who lectures him on appropriateness and planning for the future and prenuptial agreements.

Still, Jaime doesn’t entirely anticipate how it’s going to feel unpacking Brienne’s apartment and melding it with his.

It’s so different, Brienne’s having carefully collected things that clearly hold a lot of meaning. So different than Jaime’s impersonal decoration, chosen by some designer. 

He doesn’t even have bookshelves and has to order some for Brienne’s collection. Tyrion is going to be thrilled to come get his hands on some of them, Jaime thinks, because several history texts look very old and fragile. 

It’s so _domestic_. 

It isn’t that Jaime hasn’t woken up next to Brienne before. Many times now. But knowing that she’s not leaving, that she isn’t going to slip away to sleep at her own home for a night or two, somehow makes it all feel different. 

There’s something about eating food on Brienne’s mismatched plates, instead of fancy china the kids worry about breaking. Watching Brienne cook and being dragged in to help her, because she insists they can’t live on take-out and rely on a chef all the time. (Jaime doesn’t see why not.) Sitting curled up under a knitted blanket and watching TV, or Tommen asking Brienne to read stories about knights and heroes. Myrcella sneaking off with one of Brienne’s computer science books and a determined expression.

Jaime is only slightly worried about his daughter creating a robot that will destroy the world. 

Jaime also appreciates the chance to be close to Brienne, to sneak kisses and touches and sometimes more, whenever they can. Which isn’t a lot, in summer, but Jaime is very much looking forward to the start of the school year.

Even if Brienne has firmly declared he can’t call her over from work just to have sex.

Jaime doesn’t see why not. 

It’s so perfect, that Jaime almost forgets the one thing he hasn’t told Brienne. It’s probably the least of his secrets, but in some ways, one of the most consequential.

Brienne brings it up one night, lying in bed, talking quietly as they drift off to sleep. They’re spread out under Brienne’s quilt, which is so much more soothing than the bedding Jaime still associates with nightmares and loneliness. (Jaime had wanted to burn the red and gold comforter, but Brienne insisted on donating it to a thrift store, pointing out that someone would be very happy to be able to own something so nice.)

Jaime remembers, suddenly, what he hasn’t said when Brienne mentions how she’d never imagined the obnoxious nudist would be so important.

“So about that,” he says, slowly.

Brienne’s already moved in. This _probably_ won’t be the thing that makes her leave. Jaime has told her much worse.

Brienne waits, patiently, while he builds up to it. 

“I’m not a nudist,” Jaime finally admits. 

He thinks Brienne is going to hurt something with how quickly she sits up. 

Brienne is sputtering questions at Jaime while he tries to explain the logic, if you can call it that, he’d been using last year. How one spilled coffee and a gorgeous, blushing blonde spiralled into something he couldn’t quite control. 

“I’d do it all again,” Jaime tells her, meaning every word. 

Brienne looks like she might be holding a grudge on this one, and Jaime wonders how worried he should be when she says he’s going to owe her. 

“I’ll make it up to you,” Jaime promises. “Many times. As many as you want.”

He pulls her more on top of him, kissing along her shoulder, looking for the spot that tends to make her forget whatever she’s been saying.

“You can’t use sex to fix everything,” Brienne says. Her point is somewhat undermined by the way she’s wiggling against Jaime, grabbing at his biceps and sliding a hand through his hair. 

“Are you sure?” Jaime says. He slides a leg between hers, loving the way their skin slides together, the little sigh Brienne makes as she settles against his thigh. 

Whatever Brienne plans to say in response is lost in the kiss Jaime gives her, and quickly forgotten in favor of much more interesting ways of apologizing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end of this fic. I feel ... emotional. I've really loved sharing this story with all of you, and all your wonderful comments and support. 
> 
> This probably won't be the END end of this verse, though it's taking a back-burner for a while. I do have one short chaptered fic that I'll post later, and there will likely be some one shots here and there, but nothing long for a while. I do mean to eventually write the Sansa/Margaery story at some point. 
> 
> In the meantime, I have the small town Westeros AU, and a bunch of WIPs that I really need to get finished and prompt fills that all seem to want to morph into fic. One of these days, I'm even going to write some canon fic, if memories of S8 fade enough that I'm not sent into a blind rage. 
> 
> i love you all, I never expected this crazy idea would turn into something other people would love so much!

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rent, obviously.


End file.
